K.C.'s Ramblings

Our Baby

2012-01-28T21:36:00.000-08:00

Towards the end of the year X and I decided that our house was a little too quiet. We decided that it was either time for a baby or a dog. We went with the dog. :)

Introducing: Name to be Determined!

This is our new 3-year-old Welsh Terrier. She’s a hypoallergenic dog (doesn’t shed much, like a poodle), and she is very well behaved… Unless you make her do something that she doesn’t want to do; then she gets a little, shall we say, “bitey”. She also doesn’t get along very well with other dogs, but we’re hoping to nip that problem (and the biting) pretty quickly. We’re still working on some dominance issues, but once we’re over that we feel pretty confident we’ll be able to socialize her just fine.

We actually ended up getting her from a posting we saw on craigslist. It all seemed a little sketchy – one of those “too good to be true” kinds of things, but so far she has been super fun and has filled in that gap that our house was missing. She’s completely house and kennel trained, and has no problem staying inside while we’re both at work during the week. She doesn’t seem to really chew on things, and since she doesn’t really shed she is allowed on the bed and on the couch (although she does get down and sleep in her kennel during the night).

We’re still working on a name (her previous owner called her “Lulu Bear”, or just “Lulu”), but our friends’ dog’s name is “Lula”, and we’d just prefer to change it anyways. Some names we are considering are “Toffee”, “Reese”, and “Pepsi” (LOL all food names). Leave a comment if you like any of those or have another suggestion!

The Challenge is Over

2011-11-08T20:36:00.000-08:00

Last year I blogged about the Cruise Lifestyle Challenge we were doing with my family and X's mom for a year. The challenge officially ended October 1st, and everyone had a good amount of success with completing their goals.

I ended up losing 55 of the 60 pounds I wanted to lose! Unfortunately I couldn't find a "before" picture (not sure if I even took one), so I figure an "after" picture won't be worth much without something to compare it to. Instead, here's a picture of 5 lbs. of fat, so you can just imagine what it looks like (and feels like) to lose 11 of these :)

I also successfully completed a year without sweets (minus the once-in-a-lifetime desserts I was able to try in Israel, Egypt, and Jordan). I had hoped it would be relatively easy to stay away from sweets after a whole year without them, but unfortunately Halloween proved this to be incorrect. At least I feel like I'm eating a lot LESS than I used to! Here's to keeping it all off - until the cruise at least!

New Callings

2011-07-24T13:23:00.000-07:00

Now that X has gotten settled into the area, the bishopric decided that it was time to put her to work. They were going to try to give her a calling that she could do remotely (calling for visiting teaching reports maybe?), but it didn't end up happening. Now that she's back we've heard that all the auxiliaries have been "fighting" to get her, but she ended up with the young womens. Here's the new YW 1st Counselor:

I've been the Elder's Quorum secretary for about a year now. The EQ President that called me had been in for about a year. A few weeks ago X and I were asked to meet with someone in the stake presidency (we weren't familiar enough with the presidency to know if it was the president or one of his counselors), but it ended up being the president! We weren't sure if it was going to be a new calling for X or me (it really could've been for either of us - it didn't matter that she was just called as a YW's counselor), but it ended up being for me. Prior to the meeting X teased me that I was going to be called as a bishop (there have been rumors about splitting the wards out here for some time now), and I was fairly sure I wouldn't be called as the EQ President since our current President has been in for less than 2 years. So any guesses?

I'm the new EQ President!

We both are a little overwhelmed with our new responsibilities, but I guess we got what we were looking for when we decided to get outside the Utah bubble and find opportunities to serve!

Stay tuned next time - we're getting our new furniture delivered this week and finally feel like we can show off our home!

Our New House

2011-07-17T13:23:00.000-07:00

BIRD-House that is! We've had this plain, old, log/post sitting out in our front yard ever since we moved in and we've been looking for something to put on it. We were pretty sure we wanted to do a birdhouse of some kind, but none of the ones we found had the right "look" that we were after. But on our bike ride yesterday after a work picnic/carnival, we spotted a bunch of birdhouses for sale and found the perfect one. Here's the final installed product!

There's a tiny little broom leaned up against the door

Sitting atop the log/post

50 Down... 10 to go!

2011-07-03T13:23:00.000-07:00

After 9 months I am almost at my cruise goal to lose 60 pounds! I still have 3 months left for the last 10, but I definitely feel like I have plateaued and it is going to be quite a struggle to go this last little bit. It is definitely easier though to resist sweets after all this time! I'll definitely post before/after pictures after the challenge is over.

The Honeymoon

2011-06-26T13:23:00.000-07:00

I stumbled across some pictures from our Honeymoon back in 2009 and realized that I hadn't ever posted about them. Since I'm still dragging my feet on sorting through all the pictures from Egypt, Israel, and Jordan, I figure posting these might be a good stalling tactic for this week! :)

X and I were married on May 20th, 2009 in the Salt Lake Temple. We decided to do our reception the night before (at "The Point" at Huntsman Cancer Institute) which made things SO much easier - the day of our wedding was tons less hectic, and we were able to leave right after the ceremony and luncheon. Definitely the way to do it in my opinion! We decided to do a smaller honeymoon up in Park City for a week, and then for our first anniversary we'd do something bigger and better.

Since our reception was the night before, no one ended up decorating our car. Luckily my car was dirty enough for us to manage it ourselves!

We stayed our first night at the Stein Erikson Lodge, and had dinner at the Glitretind Restaurant. Since dinner was included in our Honeymoon package, we decided to be adventurous and try new and expensive things we wouldn't have tried otherwise. Our 3-course meals included raw elk (sliced paper-thin), foie gras (duck liver), quail, peanut butter and banana crème brûlée, and the most random flavors of chocolate truffles - including curry!

We spent one afternoon at the Utah Olympic Park. We found out they give free upgrades on ride passes if you are on your honeymoon! :)

X practices her form on the luge

I couldn't bear to watch

X enjoying a ride down the mountain

I'm not sure if I was enjoying this or not...

Before going down the zip-lines

Waiting for the gates to open

I smiled to trick X into thinking I was going to let her win in our race down the lines

Of course we couldn't leave out the "Alpine Slides". We'll never forget the little girl in front of us on our first run who rode the brakes the whole way down. We would literally wait a few minutes in hopes she'd be at the bottom by then, and then catch up to her in like 10 seconds! Fortunately they let us ride again for free.

I snapped this shot when we were waiting for the slow-poke

Wanna Come For a Visit?

2011-06-20T15:57:00.000-07:00

We had our good friends Mike and Suzanne out from Utah for Memorial Day Weekend and we had a blast being good hosts for them. You can read about all we did in their very complimentary recap of the weekend. So if you've ever thought about coming out but didn't know if it would be worth it, see what you think after reading what they had to say!

Preparing for X's Return

2011-06-12T13:23:00.000-07:00

I had a lot of work to do before X got home last week. I had secretly turned the house into my own personal bachelor pad (I had lots to hide up in the attic and down in the crawlspace), and there was lots of yard- and house-work I wanted to take care of prior to her return so she wouldn't have much to worry about. Here's what I've been working on the last few months to spruce the place up a bit:

Weeding

Oh the joys of owning your own home! Part of our yard is just rocks, so I was sure that was going to be weed-free; oh how wrong I was!

Our weedy side-driveway

We had LOTS of these in the grass

Even since X has been home there has still been a lot to do for the both of us! Maybe we need to get busy on that having kids thing... Luckily I heard about this stuff called Casoron, which is an herbicide that prevents seeds from germinating. So I've applied a bunch of that this year and will do more next year before anything starts to grow and hopefully we'll see a dramatic reduction in weeds.

Sandbox and Grass Seed

The previous owners had a large sandbox with a huge playhouse build into it, but they dug it out and took it with them when they left! But they didn't dig out all the toys, garbage, and other crap that was left behind in the sand. So I had to dig out all the junk left behind and make it look nice again. I also tried my best to grade the sand also since it was really shallow in some places, but really deep back by the fence. The playhouse also had a slide that went right into the grass so there was a big dirt spot where the kids would slide into the grass, so I seeded in that spot and a few others. The grass is already filling in nicely!

You can see the missing grass in this picture, and also the dark line on the fence where the sand used to be

Sprinklers & Broken Pipes

This year when I turned on the water in the backyard, I was confused when suddenly ALL of the sprinklers turned on simultaneously. Turns out all of the sprinkler valves in the backyard were bad and I had to replace them all! We also have a pair of those old-timey water pumps in our backyard, and one of those had burst during the winter so I had to dig that out and cap off the pipe. Unfortunately for me that one was tied directly to the water main (so who knows how long that was leaking?) and there was no way to turn off the water completely unless I shut off the water to the house. No fun.

After digging the hole

Looking down into the abyss

Finished result

X is back home now and I am glad I have a lot of these big projects out of the way so I can enjoy the free time with her! :)

Floor Repair

2011-05-22T13:23:00.000-07:00

Our house has nice hardwood floors in all the rooms except the bedrooms and bathrooms, but unfortunately the movers didn't understand the concept of moving pads and left some nice scratches in the floor when they moved us in last year.

Imagine this, but ALL OVER

Luckily we were able to get the moving company to fully cover the cost of repairs (after 10 months of hard work and many, MANY follow-up calls). Apparently the guys who put the floor in originally didn't really know what they were doing and neglected to let the wood acclimate to the dryness here, and so there were gaps EVERYWHERE where the boards had shrunk (see below for examples). We've been really worried about spilling any kind of liquid down there and ruining the boards from underneath, but luckily for us the floor repair guy said those gaps would have to be filled in order to do the repair, so we were able to kill two birds with one stone! I knew there was going to be a period of time when we couldn't walk on the floors while it was drying, so I made sure to get it all done before X came home. Here's a picture journal of the entire process:

DAY 0 - "Before" Pictures

Here's what the floors looked like before - we also decided to do it right and take off the baseboards so that we could get right up against the wall

Here's a good example of a gap in the boards

Some of the gaps were almost 1/4" big!

We kept the fridge plugged in and kept it in the front entryway so I could get food without walking on the floors

All of our stuff got crammed into the bedrooms

I didn't really get to cook at all during this process - good thing I like cereal!

DAY 1 - Initial Sanding

The first pass from the sander - the natural floor color was lighter than I expected!

Finished sanding

DAY 2 - Hand-Troweling the Filler

After the first round of filler - when I showed X this picture she freaked out cause she thought our floors were ruined :)

The sander - it was so heavy he had to wear a weight lifting belt to make sure he didn't hurt his back!

DAY 3 - Sealer

After sanding the filler away - the wood has so much character - the floor guy didn't know what it was for sure, but guessed it is a mix of light and dark Brazilian Teak

The sealer brought a lot of color back to the wood - luckily it dried in a few hours so I could walk on it right after work

DAY 4 - First Coat of "Glossy" Finish

The finish needs a slightly rough surface to adhere to, so they had to "scratch" the surface before applying the first coat of finish

The applicator - aptly described as looking like a "sheep's bottom"

Applying the first coat

VERY glossy! Fortunately only the last coat influences how the floor ends up looking so he used the glossy (stronger) finishes for the other coats

Look at the difference between the glossy finish and the satin sealer!

DAY 5 - Second Coat

After the second coat had dried - each coat took 24 hours to dry so I had to go out the back bedroom door and around the house to go anywhere!

DAY 6 - Final Coat

We had them do a satin finish for the final coat since the floor was so dark - that will help keep it from showing dirt as much, and overall it looks much nicer!

The finished floor - It looks so great we couldn't have hoped for better!

It took a couple days for the final coat to completely cure before we could move any of the furniture back out, but we got everything put back before X came home, so all in all it was a huge success! The floors look GREAT! And it is so nice to have a completely smooth, flat floor now and no concerns about spilling foods and liquids into any cracks. Now all we have to do is put up some new baseboards (X insisted I wait so she could help with that part), and it'll feel like a brand new house!

She's Home!

2011-05-15T13:23:00.000-07:00

9 months ago I posted about X leaving and going back to school in Utah while I stayed in Nevada to work. It was definitely one of the hardest things we've ever done, but it doesn't matter any more since SHE'S BACK!

Last weekend I drove out to Logan for her graduation, we loaded up her car and said a more permanent "goodbye" to everyone, and then drove back out to Nevada. X said it felt weird to be driving "home" since she has only spent a couple of months out here since we moved in and it doesn't really feel like home yet, but hopefully we can get that changed in the coming weeks.

Good work babe!

The day we drove home was Mother's day, so X was kind of bummed to spend the whole day in the car, but I made it up to her by letting her cut off my beard when we got home. I have to admit it was getting pretty nasty, but I wanted to see how long I could get it before she came home.

It was getting long enough to braid!

Ain't she a beauty? My chin feels so naked!

I also got X a set of Cutco knives for graduation. Both our moms had these knives growing up and they had been an item on our "want" list for some time (the knives we had previously were pretty cheap). For a while I've been telling X they were too expensive and it would be something for much later in the future, so she was quite surprised to open a box and find a whole set of her own!

Last night we were invited over for dinner at a neighbor's in our ward. I am home teaching companions with the husband and the wife is X's visiting teacher. What X didn't know is that the "dinner" was actually a surprise graduation party for her! We'd been planning it for weeks, and it was perfect because X was out of town so there really wasn't any way for her to find out about it! (X is notorious for finding out secrets). She was really surprised and happy to see so many people wishing her congratulations and happy to see her home. Now all we have to see is how long it takes for her to get called to speak in sacrament and also to receive a calling! So good to have you home babe!

For more on X's graduation keep an eye out on her blog. Supposedly she's going to try and get caught up on her blog and she'll write more about her big day.

Spring Hike

2011-05-01T13:23:00.000-07:00

We have some friends coming out to visit over Memorial Day weekend, and they are really outdoorsy people. Which is perfect because Douglas County has TONS to do outdoors! My friend's wife is 6 months pregnant though, so we wanted to find a way to see a lot of cool stuff, but still take it easy.

Last weekend I went scouting for some good hiking trails with a guy from work. He volunteers for the Douglas County Search & Rescue unit, so he's very familiar with all the different areas that people like to explore (and subsequently get lost). He said he knew of a perfect trail that is relatively easy, but has great scenery, so I took him up on the offer.

About 30 minutes south from our house is Grover Hot Springs in Markleeville, CA. Right near the hot springs is the head of a trail leading up to Hot Springs Creek Falls (it's a mouthful). After 10 minutes of hiking I could already heard the rush of water, and within the hour we saw 4 different waterfalls. It was so cool!

Hot Springs Creek Falls

More of Hot Springs Creek Falls (sorry it is a terrible angle)

Me blocking the view of Hot Springs Creek Falls

My co-worker Eelke. It's hard to tell in the picture, but he's wearing a gigantic 40-lb backpack! He says "just in case"

I don't know the name of this one (maybe they are all considered Hot Springs Creek Falls?), but Eelke says that people like to swim below this one when the weather gets warmer

This one was a little more difficult to get to, but I think she can do it!

Another popular swimming hole

The total hike was around 3 miles round-trip and took about 90 minutes. Overall it was a pretty easy hike (Eelke says he always sees families with little kids on the trail) so I think it'll be perfect for our friends, and we can always turn back if it gets too difficult.

After the hot springs hike we went over to Lake Tahoe (another one of Mother Nature's beauties less than an hour away from our house) to see Eagle Falls and Emerald Bay.

Eagle Falls - We didn't have enough time to hike down to the bottom (the trail goes all the way around the mountain), so we just went to another area to get a nice view of the whole thing (sorry the snow kinda makes the falls blend in)

The top of Eagle Falls is right near the road though, and we had enough time to see it up close

Looking "down" Eagle Falls

Emerald Bay - Some crazy rich lady owned this bay and build a castle (Vikingsholm) at the head. She would take a boat out to Fannette Island (which she also owned) for tea every day

Fannette Island - right in the middle of Emerald Bay. They have "cruises" in Lake Tahoe that will take you near/to this island

It is truly awesome to live so close to this this kind of stuff and to literally have national forests in our backyard! Thanks again Eelke for the great hike and the perfect spot to take our friends later this month!

When The Murders All Began

2011-04-17T13:23:00.001-07:00

Every Halloween some friends of mine get together for a "Murder Mystery Dinner". If you haven't ever been to a murder mystery party, basically everyone dresses up and acts like their assigned character, and you follow the mystery in a pseudo-scripted/-improved activity to discover who the murder is (sometimes you are the murderer and you don't even know it until the very end)! Well I stumbled upon this picture from the first Murder Mystery dinner from about four years ago:

Murder Mystery Dinner 2007

In case you couldn't tell, that is me on the far left in the ghastly-white complexion. I was supposed to be the 60-year-old Sir Hamish Hogwash in The Mystery of the Pungent Pumpkin Poisoner, a free murder mystery game you can download. I think I took the old-age thing a little too far, but everyone loved it and we had a really good time. If you are wanting to try out your own murder mystery dinner, but don't want to spend any money, this one was pretty fun for a first-time experience. And if you want to add a fun twist, checkout my post about the murder mystery dinner we hosted back in 2009 for more fun ideas for your own party.

Our Inviting House

2011-04-10T13:23:00.000-07:00

This is the view our friends and neighbors got as they approached our door this winter:

Watch your head!

Not very inviting, is it? At least we had our little "Welcome" sign to make people feel more comfortable as they reached our ice cave. Luckily we didn't have anyone slip on the ice that formed from all the dripping. We're definitely going to have to put some gutters up this year!

Dedicated to Breeze

2011-03-27T13:23:00.000-07:00

Dogs are the funniest animals! Growing up, we always had a dog in the house. And while yes, they are a lot of work and cost a lot of money in food and upkeep, they are just too much fun to skip out on! Here are two dog-related videos I've seen in the last little while that made me laugh really hard:

When my wife decided to move back to Utah to finish up school and left me here all alone in Nevada (don't worry honey - I don't hold it against you :) I asked her if I could get a dog to keep me company. She told me that she wanted a dog too, but didn't want it to get too attached to me and not like her as much after being with me for a full year. Lame. So hopefully within a little while of her returning we'll get ourselves a good dog (or two?)

But this post isn't supposed to be about dogs in general, but about BREEZE - my sister's Golden Retriever dog (who has really become our family dog) and has been one of my favorite dogs growing up - thanks Amanda! Don't let the blog post title fool you - she didn't die or anything - I just wanted to put up some pictures and video of the best dog around.

Growing Up

As is the case with most dogs, Breeze was a very cute puppy. Breeze was the first dog I've known since puppy-hood (all our other dogs were already adults by the time I was born, or we got them as adults from a shelter) I remember that Breeze had really bad "puppy breath" (it smelled like crap - literally) and I always wondered if it was because the puppies ate each others poop. Thankfully Breeze stopped (or never started) eating poop, so her breath has improved since then. Our other dog Hazel unfortunately has never given up the practice... :-/

Puppy Breeze

Teenager Breeze

Doesn't she look like she's going through that "awkward teenage phase" in that picture? It always makes me laugh :)

A Patient Pup

Breeze is one of the most patient dogs around. She'll sit and stay for eternity just waiting for you to tell her "okay!" before she can get up and move. She's also content to spend the entire day by your side - so long as you are willing to hold her paw.

Breeze also puts up with a lot of crap from us. She'll endure the torment as we pile a tower of treats on her nose waiting patiently (and steadily) for us to give her the command that will allow her to dine on her snout snacks.

Balancing Breeze

She will also let us play mean tricks on her (like tying a bone to the ceiling just barely out of reach), as long as in the end she does end up getting her reward:

An Unusual Hobby for a Dog

The most unique thing about Breeze is how she loves to play dress-up. She's happy with all the attention she gets when she dresses up in something like this:

Baseball Breeze

Cool Breeze

Clown Breeze

Granny Breeze

Mourning Breeze

Old Man Breeze

Painter Breeze

Bank Robber Breeze

Police Breeze

Reggae Breeze (with some paw-holding action)

Scary Breeze

Scuba Breeze

Sexy Breeze

Snowboarder Breeze

Cave Explorer Breeze

Swine Flu Breeze

We've had Breeze as part of our family for 6 years now, and here's to many more years of enjoyment and companionship with Breeze!

P.S. What is your favorite dress-up photo of breeze?

Nerds Building Stuff!

2011-03-20T13:23:00.000-07:00

Remember "Engineering Week" back in high school and college? They'd usually have some sort of neat demonstration, and there was ALWAYS a building competition (usually bridges of some sort). I never participated in school and recently got depressed when I realized that I'd never have another chance. Then came along GE.

GE celebrates "Engineering Week"
and has a building competition.

When I saw the posters up announcing the event I was stoked. I don't know if I was more excited to find out what we would be building, or to see how badly mine compared to everyone else's! After all, I'm a software engineer, and we have all sorts of mechanical and electrical engineers that can build any kind of contraption you can think of! Luckily they let us form into teams - ideally we'd have one of each type of engineer on a team to be able to tackle any sort of problem, but instead I joined a team with 2 other software engineers. We were determined to show up the other engineers!

Here are the basic rules we had for the competition:

Our challenge was to build a wind powered vehicle that would transport a small plastic duck along a set course
The vehicle could consist only of materials purchased at Wal-mart with a supplied $20 gift card
Nothing can be donated to (or by) the team
The vehicle must be wind-propelled (there were 3 fans along the course to power the vehicle - as shown below)
No part of the vehicle may be left behind (i.e. no launching the duck)

The Course

At first our designs were WAY too complicated. We were going to do some sort of tricycle-sailboat-thing with the front axle attached to the sails which would turn the vehicle in whatever direction the wind was blowing. Then we remembered we only had a week to build, test, and compete so we turned to a more simplistic idea - what if we could put the duck inside some sort of ball? Then we'd just have to make sure it was big enough to catch the wind, and light enough to move really fast!

Here's what we made:

Meet pac-man

The duck fits right into his mouth for safe-keeping!

We wanted to do a bigger ball with lighter styrofoam, but when we looked online we found that a styrofoam ball around 12" to be about $65! So we had to go with this denser (but cheaper) nerf foam.

There were 10 different teams that competed in the challenge. I have video of all of the runs (each team was allowed 2 runs), but it was too messy to put them all up here. Instead I have the TOP 5 Building Competition Runs over at my TOP 5 blog if you are interested in checking them out. For now I'll show you our best run (we ended up taking 2nd place - we lost by 0.2 seconds) and the winning run. Sorry for the bad quality!

My Team - 2nd Place

1st Place run

Ironically the winners had a design that was actually pretty close to our original tricycle-sailboat idea; just without the movable axle. Unfortunately, in competitive times like these, there are no prizes for 2nd place, but we're already looking forward to next year's building competition to try for the coveted 1st place spot.

Three-Way? Yes Please!

2011-03-06T13:23:00.001-08:00

No matter where you are in the world, there is always some new kind of food that you have never tried, or a food that is exclusive to the area you live. While I was in Cincinnati on an LDS mission, aside from people eating roadkill and squirrels, they ate spaghetti topped with Chili. And they called it a two-way. Want to add cheese? Ask for a three-way. More toppings? Four- or five-way and so on from there.

The other day I made a batch of some homemade chili and was thinking about what I could make with it when I remembered the Cincinnati-style meal. Here's my creation:

A six-way with chili, cheese, fresh tomatoes, salsa, and sour cream

Next time you're looking for a simple meal, but not the same-old red-sauce spaghetti, suggest a 3-way to your significant other and see what they have to say!

To the East!

2011-02-27T13:23:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago I flew out to Wilmington, NC for some work training. I've never been to the East Coast, and Wilmington is pretty much right on the coast, so I was excited for the opportunity to be in a beach town and experience their unique food. Typically when you hear about the water from the Atlantic you always hear that it is "so warm", and I was excited to try it out because the water in the Pacific is always so cold! Unfortunately I guess that doesn't hold true in February - the water was frigid! I talked to some of the locals though, and they said it has been colder than usual because of some unusually-cold weather down in the Gulf. Just my luck! It was fun being at the beach though, and of course I had to take the opportunity to send a message to my wife (who didn't miss me fortunately since we're already apart):

Aww... How sweet!

The best part of the trip (besides the training of course... heh heh...) was the FOOD! Check out the awesome cuisine I tried!

A Mexican sushi-roll! Avocados, rice, cheese, tomatoes and shrimp!
And instead of Wasabi they had chipotle/BBQ dressing. So good.

A crab cake INSIDE of a crab! I wasn't expecting this on my seafood platter -
it was more of a WTF moment - but it too was delicious!

Raw Oysters - I always have been curious about them and never sure if I would actually do it, but the opportunity presented itself and I just went for it.
They were saltier than I expected, but overall not too bad.

I also was told by some locals to try out a place called "Smithfield's Chicken 'N Bar-B-Q" and to get the "Chicken and Barbecue" platter. So I went into the restaurant and asked for the "BBQ Chicken" and the lady looked at me like I was a little slow. She replied "You mean the Chicken and Bar-B-Q?" I was a little confused at this point - was "Barbecue" a food here or something? Turns out it was! Barbecue in North Carolina mean pulled-pork in a vinegar- & pepper-based barbecue sauce. It definitely was different, but it was really good! And they even have a mail-order service where you can have "Bar-B-Q" shipped to you front door anywhere in the United States!

Old and Decrepit

2011-02-21T17:21:00.001-08:00

Many of you have heard me often complain that my body is growing old way too fast. With frequent sore joints, a "neck of a 60 year-old", and the fact that I started losing my hair in high school, I feel justified making that claim. But when we went to Disneyland last year I had the opportunity to "see what I would look like in 50 years". I just stumbled on these videos that I took and thought they were pretty funny.

I selected the "gain weight" and "tan often" options on this video

So if you see someone who looks like this next time you are in the grocery store, don't be surprised if it is me and my body just decided to age a little on me again!

I <3 Bacon

2011-01-16T08:43:00.000-08:00

I put two special items on my Christmas list this year because so far I just haven't been able to bring myself to buy them. I'd seen them popping up in stores for the last year or two, but I just knew they probably weren't going to be as good as I'd hoped.

Well turns out I DID get them for Christmas, and so now I've had the opportunity to try them guilt-free and not feel bad about throwing them away if they were terrible. Thus far I've had difficulty in bringing myself to using them in fear of ruining a perfectly delicious sandwich or meal, but I HAVE tried them a little. Here are my experiences thus far:

Bacon-Salt: I tried this on some popcorn because I know this same company makes a product called Bacon Pop. It actually was pretty good. X didn't like it at all, but I plan to put it on all my popcorn in the future. I think it'll be a good strategy in the future for ensuring that she doesn't HOG all the popcorn on our movie nights ;) Here are some other ways I plan to try this in the future:

Scrambled Eggs
Steamed Veggies
Sandwiches

Baconnaise: First off I have to say that this doesn't smell anything like bacon to me. Its' like a weird combination of thousand island dressing smell and Worcestershire sauce - but that's still not quite it. I've had it on a sandwich or two and couldn't really taste anything (this could be due to the fact that X says I barely scrape any mayo on my sandwiches anyways). But Friday night I did the ultimate taste test - a Tuna Bacon-Salad Sandwich! It actually wasn't half-bad, and surprisingly enough it actually did kinda taste like bacon. Some other ideas I'm trying to talk myself into:

Deviled Eggs
Celery Sticks
Fry Sauce
Egg Bacon-Salad Sandwich
Bacon Dip (yes - dipping bacon INTO it)

If I haven't grossed you out already, why don't you give it a shot and leave a comment with your most disgusting (or even good) ideas on how I can use my new bacon-substitute products? And if you are interested in trying some of these products, just remember what they say - Baconnaise is "For people who want heart disease, but are too lazy to make the bacon". Cheers!

I Once Was Blind, But Now I See

2011-01-07T21:30:00.000-08:00

Alright, I'll admit it - those aren't the exact lyrics from "Amazing Grace", but those words are exactly what've been in my head for the last 30 hours... because I got LASIK surgery! In 10 minutes time I went from 20/220 vision to 20/15! For those of you that aren't eye-lingo savvy, 20/220 means that objects that are 20 feet away from me would appear like something 220 feet away from someone with good vision. Now I can see things at 20 feet as if they were 15 feet away!

It has been a long journey for me up to this point. Back in the 8th grade I noticed that my eyes were constantly tired and I was always squinting. I couldn't see the board very well in class, so I'd often sit up front. My teachers finally said something about my squinting, so I went in for an eye exam. Much to my dismay I found out that I needed glasses. At that time however my eyes weren't that bad. Around 20/60, but still bad enough that I couldn't see what was written on the board very clearly. Over time my eyes got a little worse each year, and around the time I was a senior in High School I knew I was old enough to get LASIK. I asked my eye doctor, but he said I needed to have a stable prescription for a couple of years so that my eyes wouldn't change after the surgery. That was around the time I took up contacts.

Contacts were both a blessing and a curse. No longer did I have to wear nerdy, easy-to-fingerprint glasses, but my eyes were ALWAYS dry and it was a pain to maintain them and keep them clean. I went through numerous brands and styles of contacts, each allowing more and more oxygen to the eye (in theory to prevent dry eyes), but none seemed to work well for me. I finally found a brand that didn't dry out my eyes nearly as bad as the others, and as a plus I was able to keep them in for up to a month at a time! The only problem is they were like $300/year, plus I had to pay for a new eye exam & prescription each year. After my 2nd year of dealing with the hassle and price of these contacts, I decided it was time to look into LASIK again. It turned out my prescription hadn't changed for the last 3 or 4 years, so I was a perfect candidate! I booked a free LASIK consultation, put some money aside in an FSA, and set the appointment for a time when X was going to be in town so she could drive me home after the operation.

Which brings us to yesterday. We went in around 3:30, I put on some sterile attire, and proceeded to get this done to my eye. (Warning: The video has some "eww" moments, but it is far less graphic than some of the other LASIK videos on youtube) P.S. this isn't me in the video.

We went straight home, I took some magic pills, and slept for the rest of the night. Now I just have to put drops of antibiotics and steroids in 4 times a day and keep my eyes lubricated as needed. The hardest part is remembering not to rub my eyes - I wouldn't want to tear off the cornea flap!

Here are some pictures-

Right after my surgery - my eyes were pretty red

I think the medicine was starting to kick in...

The day after - most of the redness is gone but there was some hemorrhaging (the doctor said this is normal)

An extra large & purple hemorrhage :)

My ninja goggles that I get to wear at night to make sure I don't accidentally rub my eyes while asleep. Don't I look dangerous?

Overall I am extremely satisfied. Or as satisfied as I can be just a day after my surgery! I'll keep things updated (as much as I do with other things on here) as time progresses. If you have ever considered LASIK or have any questions, now you know someone whom you can go to for answers!

To Walk Where Jesus Walked

2010-12-17T23:35:00.000-08:00

This is an original road where Jesus walked

Last month X and I spend two weeks with her family in the Holy Land. I've been so busy since getting back that I haven't had a chance to blog about it yet, but I hope to get on it soon. With over 700 pictures to sort through, it is going to take some time, but I'm going to try to do it in chunks so it isn't such a massive novel of a blog.

See you soon! Shalom.

I'm Famous!

2010-12-13T20:25:00.000-08:00

The other day I stumbled upon this link. I was surprised to see a blurb about me on the GE website! You never know who is going to see what you write on your blog. Keep an eye on my TOP 5 Blog for an upcoming post about the dangers of blogging.

Christmas Tree

2010-12-09T23:37:00.000-08:00

Can you believe this is OUR tree? We got a new (used) tree from the classifieds this year, and we bought some nice ornaments from Target. Growing up we've never had a "nice" tree with matching ornaments, and it was always something I've wanted to try. Let us know how you think it turned out!

Father Candy

2010-11-11T09:30:00.000-08:00

I just had to post this picture of the candy poster X made for me <gulp!> LAST YEAR for Father's Day. :)

Click here to enlarge

Sorry for all these belated posts, I just want to get through them all so I can go onto more recent things.

King of the Tube

2010-11-05T19:52:00.000-07:00

Over the 4th of July we were able to go boating with some friends in the ward. We have two lakes within 30 minutes of our house, so a lot of people in the area have equipment to do all sorts of fun water stuff. We enjoyed water-skiing, wake-boarding, tubing, and canoeing. I even got to drive the boat!

Towards the end of the afternoon things started to wind down and we got a little bored. Me and Kyle (another guy from our ward) decided to have a little fun and to play "King of the Tube" (think King of the Mountain, but the winner is the last one still on the tube).

Kyle and I prepare for battle

We struggled mightily to try to knock the other person off. At this point we were having fun. This is the last time I think either of us smiled that day.

As things progressed and we still hadn't knocked each other off, the boat driver started going faster and hitting harder waves. At one point we were turned completely vertical and we hit a huge wake. CRACK! Kyle and I slammed into each other sideways, and we both let go. I had the wind knocked out of me (isn't that one of the worst feelings ever?), and it was at that point that I was grateful to be wearing a life jacket! It wasn't clear who let go first, so we decided to call it a draw.

The end of the battle - for now...

That whole week I could barely move. My side hurt so bad, and it hurt to move between any sitting, standing, or laying position. After a week of pain and not feeling any better, I decided to go to the doctor to make sure I hadn't done anything really bad. The doctor told me I probably had some broken ribs, but that it was pointless to get an X-ray because there is nothing they can really do for it. The next week at church Kyle told me that his ribs were broken too! So let this be a lesson next time you are tempted to play "King of the Tube" - don't do it unless you want to be in pain for the next 6 weeks!

Pumpkin Carving Extravaganza 2010

2010-10-31T17:52:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween everyone! For those of you that don't remember, two years ago I posted pictures of the pumpkins X and I carved for Halloween. I really wanted to turn it into a yearly tradition, but last year we were so busy with the Murder Mystery Dinner that we just didn't have enough time to get any done. So I had to make up for it this year! I don't have any novels to tell of inspiration-invoking pumpkins this year, but I still had fun coming up with unique ideas to carve. Since X wasn't around this year, I still got her involved by having her help me come up with some of these ideas. Hover over each picture below with your mouse to see what the pumpkins look like when they are lit!

Red M&M

Yellow M&M

Hunchbart

Jelly Belly

2010-10-25T23:11:00.000-07:00

Several people have told us about a free tour of the Jelly Belly factory in Northern California, so on our way back from our trip to San Francisco we just couldn't resist stopping to check it out. We're both pretty inquisitive in regards to how things are made (we love watching shows like "How it's made") so we figured this would be pretty awesome. We weren't let down!

Outside the Jelly Belly factory

X standing in front of the creepy Jelly Belly mascot

All of the pictures inside the Jelly Belly factory are made out of (you guessed it) jellybeans! Most of the pictures are made up of over 10,000 individual jellybeans!

A jellybean buffalo nickel

Three jellybean presidents

Two Jelly Bellies (after we ate all those jellybeans!)

We weren't allowed to take pictures on the actual manufacturing floor, but we were able to see the whole process. Unfortunately we went during the weekend so nothing was actually running, but it was still cool to see all the machinery and each stage of the jellybean. We also got to try out some of the new flavors they are working on, and also some of those horrible trick jellybeans (think earwax, dog food, and rotten egg). With all the free jellybeans that you wanted to try, who wouldn't love coming here? We would just recommend if you are interested in going that you go on a weekday so you can see everything in action!

Unpleasant Neighbors

2010-10-04T07:15:00.000-07:00

Throughout the summer we worked pretty hard on our yard to try to keep it looking nice. We even cleared away the spider webs that we found, but we noticed that some of them kept showing up again a few days after we cleared them. We never saw any spiders out during the day, so one night we went out with the flashlight to see if we could spot any culprits. We found out that apparently the rocks used for our landscaping are a favorite vacation spot for black widows!

Think your spiders are bad?

After an extensive search of our front and back yard we found and killed 10 black widows. All of them were huge and terrible! We are hoping to find some way to keep them from showing up again next year. Let us know if you have any suggestions.

Cruise Lifestyle Challenge

2010-09-30T21:00:00.000-07:00

Ever since we got back from our cruise in May, we have been DYING to go on another one! But we didn't feel like we could just freely spend the money - we felt like we had to EARN it. So we started brainstorming ides of how we could use another cruise as motivation to get something done. We ended up settling on losing weight - neither of us have felt motivated enough to really work hard at it since we got married! And as part of the deal, we decided to invite my family and X's mom and sister (none of which have been on a cruise before) to go with us, with the deal that we would cover the cost of the cruise if they also made a list of goals and got them accomplished in the next year. What better way to help inspire change, but also to let people feel like they owned the changes they were making to themselves?

I've always heard that if you write your goals down you are more likely to get them accomplished, and if you make them public you are even more likely to accomplish your goals! So here are my goals for the next year:

Lose 60 pounds by:

Exercising at least 2x a week for 30 minutes
Not eating any desserts, candies, or sweets (except for the rare "once in a lifetime" chance to try something new)
Walking to get the mail every day
Only eating one helping at meals
Not drinking any soda or sugary drinks

Read the Book of Mormon and pray everyday

And here are X's goals:

Lose 18 pounds by:

Exercising 4x a week for 30 minutes
Eating slowly and stopping when satisfied

Read the scriptures everyday for at least 10 minutes
Read the entire Old Testament by reading 2+ chapters each day
Pray every morning and evening

We start tomorrow and go until next October. Wish us luck!

A San Francisco Treat

2010-09-27T23:02:00.000-07:00

X and I spent out last weekend together in San Francisco before she moved back to Logan to finish her last year of school. The bay area is only 4 hours away from our house, so it makes for a quick and easy weekend getaway!

On the way to San Francisco we stopped by Mountain View, CA to visit my friend Mike who got a job working with Google. We were able to visit him at work and he gave us a tour of the Google campus. We arrived around noon and Mike was kind enough to treat us to lunch (it was easy enough for him since all the food is free...)

This is a famous Google Chrome bike. They have these and other Google bikes available for anyone to ride around the Google Campus. X just couldn't resist!

After our brief stint in Mountain View, we headed north to San Francisco. We checked into our hotel and went out to explore the city. We ate at a fresh seafood restaurant for dinner and enjoyed walking around the city. The next morning our first stop was Fisherman's Wharf:

We accidentally jumped on the wrong trolley and ended up on the other side of town. It turned out to be a one-way ride, so we had to pay another full fare to get back to where we had parked!

We loved the seals/sea lions at pier 39. It was pretty funny watching them fight and try to push each other off the end of the floating docks. It wasn't warm or sunny at all, and there were plenty of other floating docks to move to, but they all seemed to want to share the same one.

We couldn't find out what was wrong with the one on the left. He stayed frozen in that position the whole time we were there...

We also drove down Lombard street!

30-minutes later we decided it was one of those "once in a lifetime" experiences

Later that afternoon was the main event for us in San Francisco - I had surprised X with tickets to see Wicked for her birthday! She was pretty excited to spend the entire weekend with me, but I think she was more excited to see the show!

This wasn't the first time we'd seen the show - we won the raffle in New York for front-row seats back in 2008 - but this time we were a little further back and we enjoyed being able to see the entire show without it being right up in our faces. After the show we found out that Wicked was only playing in San Francisco for another week or two before ending its run, and that ticket prices had skyrocketed for all of the remaining shows - luckily I had purchased our tickets right before the announcement was made and didn't have to pay an arm and a leg! (just a leg)

After the show we drove out to the Golden Gate Bridge (our show was a matinee, so it was still light after we got out) and watched the sun set on the city from the bridge. A note for anyone who hasn't ever driven across the Golden-Gate Bridge - it is free to travel north across the bridge, but it is $6 to travel back the other way (cash only, of course). You've been warned!

We parked and started the long trek across the bridge. We only walked to the halfway point so that in the end we walked the "entire length" of the bridge.

As I thought about living alone for the next year...

After I found out that we had to pay $6 to get back across the bridge...

After the bridge we stopped by a nice BBQ place for dinner and then Ghirardelli Square for dessert.

This beef rib was as large as my forearm!

Apparently this is how chocolate is made

All in all we had a great time and look forward to our next trip together!

The Postcard

2010-09-04T12:37:00.000-07:00

X and I wanted to come up with a really creative way to let people know that we had moved. While we were on our anniversary we came up with a really good idea to send people a postcard - but what to put on it? We passed on the cliche "posing in the front yard" idea, and decided to have some fun. This is what we came up with:

On the reverse it says: "We've moved! Life's a little different out here in Nevada, but you should still come out for a visit! You're welcome anytime, so give us a call or just stop by and we'll have a good old-fashioned boot stomp!"

Maybe I just have a thing for cross-dressing? We heard a lot of people enjoyed it, and that is what we were going for. If you didn't get one, all I can say is sorry we could only afford to send out a handful (they were pretty expensive) but you ended up seeing it here anyways. So no complaining!

Alone

2010-08-28T14:03:00.000-07:00

Saying goodbye is always hard. Especially when it's to your best friend! Today my wife left to go back to school. I tried to spend as much time as possible with her this summer before she left (I didn't have much time for posting). She has two semesters left before she graduates with a Bachelor's degree in Public Health, and she's going back to Utah State University to finish it up. Most people think we're crazy (sometimes I even think we're crazy) but to those of you who want to know "why did we do it?" here's the rundown:

She has a Presidential Scholarship at USU that covers all her tuition and fees
She only has one year left at USU before she graduates
UNR (University of Nevada - Reno) is the closest university to us here in Nevada that offers the same program that she is studying. It's an hour away and we only have one car
UNR will only accept 1/2 of her credits that she has already earned - that turns into a whole extra year of school to make up those credits
Since we just moved to Nevada and haven't established residency yet, she'd have to pay out-of-state tuition and it is EXPENSIVE!
The actual cost difference per year between USU and UNR is $16,000

Most people typically think that we made this decision solely based on the money. But honestly, I would gladly pay anything it costs to keep her here. The main reason she is going back to Utah State is because she doesn't want to have to go to school for 2 more years; she just wants to be done!

So she's going back to school and I'm here all alone. It's not all bad though. It isn't like we aren't going to see each other for the next 9 months. We already have a good schedule setup for the Fall semester and we'll see each other almost every month! Here's a preview of what we've managed to plan:

September - Our friend Allison is getting married and I'm flying out to Utah for the wedding

October - I'm headed out the University of Utah and up to Utah State University for a work recruiting trip (my boss specifically chose me so that I could go see her)

November - We're going on a 2-week trip with her family to Israel, Jordan, and Egypt

December - She will spend Christmas break with me at home

We don't have something planned for every month during Spring semester yet, but hopefully I can go on another recruiting trip for work and she'll probably come home for spring break too.

If you are ever in the area please feel free to stop by. Or if you are bored call or text me. I've never been 100% alone before. I've always had a roommate or a companion or something, so it definitely will be an interesting time for me in my life. Wish me luck, and let's all keep our fingers crossed for her to get the grades she needs to graduate next spring to come back home!

Murder Mystery Dinner 2009 - Pasta, Passion, & Pistols

2010-06-15T14:41:00.000-07:00

I was in charge of hosting the final (?) installment of the murder mystery dinners that my friends Sarah and Allison and I have been doing the last few years. Each of us has taken a turn hosting a dinner around Halloween each year, but now that each of us has had a turn and the fact that X and I have moved out of state, this last one might have been the last time (at least for all of us together). Knowing this I wanted to do something really fun and original for my dinner - I had all the guys play girl parts, and all the girls play guy parts! I had some negative response from a few people at first (mostly from homophobia or people who felt like it was just wrong), but after a little bit of coercion everyone was game! The murder mystery dinners are usually a little corny (you'll notice from the characters names listed below), but we always just have fun with it. So here's how it worked:

The Mystery

The succulent aroma of home-cooked pasta is drifting from New York City's most popular Italian eatery, La Speranza, but something else is heating up in the kitchen . . . cold-blooded murder! Restaurant-owner Pepi Roni has been shot in the back with his own pistol. Tonight his family and friends will gather to pay their respects to poor Pepi, but one of the guests won't be shedding any tears.

The Suspects

Rocco Scarfazzi

Pepi's twin brother, a tough-talking no-nonsense Italian business man. In addition to his vineyards and real estate holdings, it is rumored Rocco is in the 'laundering' business. He had no love for his brother Pepi but his reasons are his own... capische?

Tara Misu

Rocco's vivacious young fiancé. She was just an upstairs maid in Rocco's villa until she swept him off his feet. Now Tara keeps a smile on his face and a firm grip on Rocco's assets. Tara is dressed to kill. She knows the effect she has on men and flaunts her charms shamelessly.

Bo Jolais

Cousin of a cousin of Rocco's, Bo manages the Scarfazzi vineyards. Bo comes from a long line of French wine-makers and no one knows 'ze' grape like Bo. An important man in the Scarfazzi organization .... what could Bo possibly have to whine about.

Mama Rosa

Pepi's grieving widow. For 25 years, Mama Rosa cooked the pasta while Pepi greeted La Sperenza's dinner guests. In all the years they were married, not once did they argue. Had something finally boiled over in Rosa's kitchen?

Angel Roni

Pepi and Rosa's beautiful daughter. It was Pepi's dream that his 'Angel' would marry a good Italian boy, have children and carry on the family traditions. Angel has a few fantasies of her own though and one of them is that hunk, Bo jalais. Mama-mia!

Marco Roni

Pepi and Mama Rosa's only son, Marco was expected to take over the restaurant after his parents retired. Marco hates waiting tables. His goal is to play on a World Cup soccer team but his papa has been keeping him permanently on the bench.

Father Al Fredo

An Italian priest and long-time family friend of the Roni's and the Scarfazzi's. The good priest has heard their confessions and knows their sins.

Clair Voyant

Rosa's best friend and astrology advisor. Clair's talents include an ability to communicate with the spirit world and see into the future.

We had a lot of fun at this dinner. I love doing the murder mystery dinners with this group because a lot of people really get into it and try to act & dress like their character would. If you look online at pictures from other people's murder mystery dinners (like this one, this one, or this one), most of them have just thrown on a dress shirt and called it good. But we go all out! It's a good thing we have DI!

While I won't reveal who the killer was, I will say that I wasn't surprised! One interesting thing I have noticed is that the killers have always been women. The funny thing is that it would've been a man this time had I not swapped male and female parts, but I guess it was just intuition that just made me do it! Here's hoping we can do another one of these sometime in the future!

Closing Time

2010-06-13T17:45:00.000-07:00

We have finished signing all of the documents to close on our house! Our loan will be funded on Tuesday or Wednesday this week, and we'll be able to move in by Friday at the latest! We ended up getting a really good rate on our loan (better than the one our lender tried to get us to pay to lock-in a few months ago), and we'll close in time for the $8,000 tax credit. We have our fingers crossed that the sellers will be out of there by Wednesday, but either way we know that we'll be in our house by Friday. It will be such a relief to get out of our motel and suitcases and into our home! There are a few things we already know we want to fix-up in the house, but we just have to decide what we want to work on first! We'll be sure to post pictures and keep everyone updated on our home as we get all settled in.

Anniversary & Graduation Vacation

2010-06-11T19:00:00.000-07:00

After my graduation we spent a week down in Salt Lake City saying goodbye to friends and family and tying up all the loose ends before we moved to Nevada. Then we drove to California for our CRUISE!!

That was our boat - The Carnival Splendor - it was HUGE! I couldn't believe how big the boat was when I first saw it! There were 13 floors above water that we could access, and we couldn't imagine how many more were underwater in order to keep that thing from tipping over!

Our cruise was a week long and we visited Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, and Cabo San Lucas in the Mexico Riviera. Our first night X got a little sick because our dining room was in the "aft" of the ship and it was rocking a little more at the back of the boat, but we were able to get her a sickness patch and move our dining location to the center of the boat and everything was smooth sailing from there.

Our dinners were crazy good; we always had tons of options to choose from. Each night we were able to choose an appetizer(s), main course(s), and dessert(s)! It was a great opportunity to try something new, or a little bit of everything. And they always had live music!

This is the filet mignon that X got on one of the "elegant nights" (where everyone gets/has to dress up for dinner). Some of the other dishes we enjoyed were lobster tail, ribs, salmon, shrimp, red snapper, and of course the pizza and ice cream that were available 24/7.

Each night we had a fun towel animal waiting to greet us after dinner. Here were some of our favorites:

Our ports of call were AWESOME! X and I had both been to Mexico before so we already knew of some of the things we wanted to see again, but there were also new things that we decided to try out.

Puerto Vallarta

We did the "Extreme Canopy Zip-Line Adventure" in Puerto Vallarta. We'd heard from several people that this was something that we wouldn't want to miss out on, so we decided to buy tickets through the cruise line to make sure we had our seats reserved (note to self: never buy tickets through a cruise line in the future - on shore its almost half the price and very available).

The excursion started with a 15-minute boat ride to this small beach and dock. Little did we know we still had a lot of ground to cover in a variety of modes of transportation. You can tell we had no idea because we are still smiling.

The next leg of our journey took part in these Mercedes Benz trucks that drove us wildly up the side of the mountain. We were still smiling in this picture because the truck hadn't left yet, but we soon discovered as the driver left that he must've forgotten we were in the back of the truck because we were bouncing all over the place. Luckily the seats were heavily padded!

Once we reached the destination for the beginning of our adventure, we got all dressed up in our gear, but we noticed that we didn't see any zip-lines. They told us to sit on these benches and wait for our next ride. In this picture we finally saw what we were taking up the rest of the way... MULES! As you can tell in this picture, X and I were less than enthused. :) All joking aside, it really wasn't that bad. The truck ride up the mountain was fine, and we enjoyed ourselves on the different legs of the journey. We weren't allowed to take our cameras on the adventure, but they had their own photographer and she just happened to take that picture when neither of us looked very happy.

Here we are on our mules. My mule was really slow (a combination of the fact that he was really old and he probably didn't like what he was carrying). I didn't know this at first, so I waited for X so we could ride up together, but her mule ended up darting past me and I rode up the rest of the way alone at the back of the pack. The worst thing was that mules are very gassy animals, so being at the end of the line I got the full wind of all the other mules in front of me. So glad I waited! :)

These were our guides on the adventure. They were so crazy, and they made us all laugh.

Here we are on the 1,000 foot long zip-line 200 feet above the ground!

Here's us repelling down the side of a WATERFALL! What an experience!

Here is us doing a 100 foot free-fall repel next to another waterfall.

And here we are racing together on the last zip-line. I totally won!

We had such a blast on our adventure! Even though we probably overpaid for our adventure, we still had so much fun and would totally do it again!

Mazatlan

Both X and I had been to Mazatlan before, but we were excited to go back and relive some of our favorite memories from our childhood visits.

We went horseback riding on the beach in Mazatlan at the same place X went when she was younger. We loved riding in the surf and enjoyed all the Mexican sun!

We also went parasailing while in Mazatlan. I love X's facial expression as she is taking off!

Here is a video of me taking off. One thing I like about the parasailing in Mazatlan is that they let you take-off straight from the beach! It made it really easy to take these pictures.

Here is a video of X landing. You get to land right back on the beach, but you have to be careful of bystanders on the beach. Watch the last couple of seconds on the video and pay close attention to the lady in blue running/ducking for cover!

Cabo San Lucas

Our shortest time ashore was in Cabo San Lucas since the cruise ship had to start heading back that evening to make it back to California on time.

We decided to go on a snorkeling tour for the day and really enjoyed swimming with the fish! Our snorkeling guide brought some crackers that the fish really liked to eat, so when we stood by him as he crushed up the crackers we literally had hundreds of tropical fish swimming all around us. It was totally surreal!

Cabo San Lucas was our last port of call, and we headed back to California for debarkation. Many of the people we met were headed back to work after the week-long cruise, but we still had more vacationing to do! Heh heh suckers!

After we got off the ship, X and I drove to a nearby beach and spent a little more time on the beach. The water was much colder here than it was down in Mexico!

After a while the wind began blowing pretty hard and we felt like we were in a sand storm! The sand hurt pretty bad so we decided to leave. We drove to our next hotel near Anaheim, CA where we stayed for the next 3 days!

We visited Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure the first two days in Anaheim. We soon discovered that mid-May is THE BEST time to go to California. It's not super hot, and most people are still in school so we never had to wait in line very long!

X's favorite ride is Tower of Terror. As you can see I don't much care for this ride. ;)

We also enjoyed making funny faces (similar to the one we did here) on rides where they take your picture.

Disney's California Adventure had all sorts of construction going on near Paradise Pier. We found out that it was for a new water show called Disney's World of Color. It looks like it is going to be AWESOME! They were supposed to have it up and running by the time we were there, but they were still running tests when we visited. We were sad that we missed it, but we look forward to the next time we visit so we can see all the new stuff! Here is a video of all their upcoming plans:

We are definitely excited!

We also visited Knott's Berry Farm on our last day in Anaheim. They have a few more "thrill rides" than Disneyland has to offer, and we thoroughly enjoyed those.

They also had this crazy horse-riding roller coaster where you get to sit on these horses as you ride! The ride was alright, but it was definitely a unique coaster experience!

After 3 days in Anaheim we drove up to my aunt's house in Ventura where we stayed the night and were planning to drive the rest of the way to Nevada the next day. But... at the last minute we decided to go to Six Flag's Magic Mountain!

Magic Mountain has some of THE craziest thrill rides I've ever been on. Of course I've never been to another Six Flags park or to Cedar Point (someday I will, someday), but we figured that we might as well go since we didn't have any real plans for the weekend in Nevada, and since it was probably the best time of the year to go with the smallest crowds. And it turns out we were right!

X2, the world's first 4th dimensional roller coaster, was something I was excited to ride again. We had come to Magic Mountain with my family back in 2008, but the lines were terrible and we spent most of the day waiting in line (including a 3-hour wait for X2)! We were thrilled to see that the wait for X2 was only 15 minutes pretty much the whole day!

Magic Mountain also has a ride called Tatsu, which is a flying roller coaster (where you are lying down during the ride to get a sense of "flying").

This video I took (sorry for the bad sound and video quality) shows how the seats on Tatsu rotate 90 degrees into the "flying position" for the entire ride. You can extend your hands to feel like you are really flying!

After a fun day at Magic Mountain, we drove the rest of the way to Nevada, and are staying at a local motel until our house is ready for us to move in!

Overall we had such a blast on vacation and on our cruise, and we are looking forward to doing more cruises in the future. The only thing we'd change is to have friends come with us next time so that we have more people to do stuff with. So if you are interested, leave a comment and we can start planning our next adventure!

My Graduation

2010-06-07T19:25:00.000-07:00

I finally did it! I tackled the beast! On May 8th I graduated cum laude with a Bachelor's degree in computer science. It was a long 4-year journey, and I'm glad it is over. I plan on getting my master's degree at some point in the future, but for now I am taking a much-needed break!

These are a couple of my buddies who also decided to walk. The one in the middle, Devin, ended up getting a job at GE Energy with me. Danny Glover spoke at our commencement, but no one really seems to know what he was talking about.

My friends Allison and Dale came up and brought air horns for everyone to blow when they announced my name. We were a little scared to blow them at first because we didn't know if we would get in trouble, but the dean of the college of science encouraged everyone to be as loud as possible. Here is a video of me being announced:

After I was announced the dean told everyone that they should be as loud as we were! It was pretty funny.

My brother Landon is also ready to be done with school.

Thanks to everyone who went out of their way to come and support me!

One Year Later

2010-05-20T16:57:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it has been one year since X and I started our journey together - and we have never looked back!

We've had a blast with all the many experiences we've had together, and we've enjoyed every minute of it. I'll tell ya, married life is a WHOLE lot different than dating life - and not in just the most obvious of ways. Everything is really relaxed; there's no more worrying about if I am impressing her or not; and we find so many more things to laugh about together - especially all the embarrassing moments. While I'm not going to delve into any of those special moments that X and I have experience together, I did want to share these pictures of us together, starting at the beginning.

I love you X! Here's to another perfect year.

We Have a House!

2010-05-06T22:52:00.000-07:00

We got our offer accepted! We've already completed all the necessary inspections (house, roof, and pest), and now we're just working things out with the lender to have everything ready to close and move-in around the middle of June! There a couple small problems discovered in the inspections (some missing window screens, the ridge cap on the roof in need of repair, and some door problems), but the seller has agreed to take care of everything. Also, the appraisal report indicated that the house is worth more than what we offered, so we were happy to hear that we are getting a good deal and that we'll have some instant equity in the home. Everything else has been smooth sailing since the offer was accepted, and it has been very interesting to see how the whole home-buying process works. The only things left to do are to figure out our home insurance, and to hope that everything goes well with the underwriters.

Here are some pictures and info about the house (you can click on the images to make them larger):

This is our house. Unfortunately it faces north (something I PROMISED myself I would never buy), so we won't get any sun benefit to melt the snow in the winter, but with an average annual snowfall of only 22" (the annual snowfall in Salt Lake City is around 60") and an average of 265 days of sunshine per year, I don't think we'll run into any problems. :)

Here are some pictures of the back yard. It looks like we have a play house (we aren't sure if it is staying or not), and we have a dog run also on the east side of the house. Getting a dog/puppy is one of the first things we are looking forward to doing in our new home!

Here is a basic overview of the living and dining room areas. It feels really open with the arched ceilings, and the entire house has hardwood floors except for the bedrooms (carpet) and bathrooms (slate/tile).

The kitchen is newly remodeled with granite countertops and solid wood cabinets. The stove and microwave are a little old, but GE gives their employees a great discount on all their appliances, so we definitely have some options once these one need to be replaced. The kitchen also has a custom-paneled, double-drawer dishwasher (seen in the last 2 pictures), which will make it nice to run small or separate loads!

The living room has a wood-burning stove and corner stone hearth. That will keep us plenty warm in the winter!

The master bedroom's colors match our bedroom set perfectly (our accent color is the same shade of green). We also have a set of french doors leading out to the patio. The master bathroom has slate flooring and the master closet to the right. I think the faucet in the bathroom is kinda cool...

The other two bedrooms are a bit smaller, but we don't need something really big at this point.

The laundry room doubles as a mud room out to the garage. There is also a sink in the laundry room. The 2-car garage is fully finished and has plenty of storage space. Now all I need is a work bench!

This is a basic layout of the house. Overall 1,670 square feet on a 1/5th acre lot.

The house is about 15 minutes away from GE and about 40 minutes away from where X will be doing her internship over the summer. We are so excited to move in and make it our home.

House Hunting

2010-04-26T22:30:00.000-07:00

We spent the week of Spring Break in Nevada to look for houses and explore the area. It was perfect timing for us, and we hoped to find something we liked so that we could qualify for the housing tax credit in time. It ended up being quite an adventure, and we saw so many houses they all just seem to run together! There were a bunch we liked, so naturally we've made some offers. Unfortunately we've had a pretty big run of rejections, but these were some of our favorites:

House #1:

Bedrooms: 4.5

Bathrooms: 3

Year Built: 2004

Sq Feet: 1,960

Acres: 1/6

REASON FOR REJECTION: The bank decided that they didn't want to wait until June to close. Lame!

This house was one of our favorites from the beginning (we were able to look at many of the houses online beforehand) and ended up being our first offer. We liked the area and proximity to my work, plus with the extra bedrooms & bathroom it felt like a house that we could grow into. Unfortunately we got pretty emotionally attached to the house, so when our offer was rejected it was a pretty hard hit. We've learned now to not get as emotionally attached. It's hard!

House #2:

Bedrooms: 3

Bathrooms: 2

Year Built: 1999

Sq Feet: 1,607

Acres: 1/6

REASON FOR REJECTION: Another offer was accepted 15 minutes before we sent ours in. Lame!

This one and the one above tied for our favorite houses on the trip. We really liked the yard and master bathroom of this one. We had a tough time deciding which house to put an offer on, and when we tried to rebound off the rejection of the other house only to find out that this one was already taken, we were pretty sad.

House #3:

Bedrooms: 3

Bathrooms: 2

Year Built: 2002

Sq Feet: 1,344

Acres: 1/5

REASON FOR REJECTION: The bank had already accepted another offer, but had forgotten to change the status. Lame!

This was our "backup" house from our trip; the house that we would fall-back on in case the other two didn't work out. It was a little on the smaller side, but we thought it would definitely work to start out with. When this one also fell through, we began to get worried that we wouldn't even be able to find a house before we needed to move!

House #4:

Bedrooms: 3

Bathrooms: 2

Year Built: 1991

Sq Feet: 1,695

Acres: 1/5

REASON FOR REJECTION: The seller thought we "didn't have enough money" because we asked for them to pay part of closing costs. Super lame!

This house was awesome.We didn't actually see this one on our house-hunting trip, but our agent was kind enough to do a walk-through and take tons of pictures for us, and we immediately loved it. Even though we knew not to get emotionally attached, we were still pretty devastated when our offer was rejected on this one. Especially with the seller's illogical reasoning!

House #5:

Bedrooms: 3

Bathrooms: 2

Year Built: 1994

Sq Feet: 1,670

Acres: 1/5

This was another that we didn't see on our trip, but our seller sent us some pictures. It has a really nice kitchen and has been very well-maintained. We are currently waiting to hear if they accept our offer, and we have our fingers crossed. Wish us luck!

The Right Decision

2010-04-16T18:20:00.000-07:00

Read this article

It's times like these that I'm glad I didn't choose Goldman Sachs.

What the Future Holds in Store

2010-04-10T14:21:00.000-07:00

I graduate in less than a month! Because of the current economy and resulting job market, many of my friends don't know what they are doing after college. Fortunately for us I was able to secure a job after I graduate. A few months ago I wrote this post while in Chicago for a job interview. X also wrote this post about my week of interviews. Here is a breakdown of where I was and what I was doing:

Thursday, November 5, 2009

GE Energy - Minden (Reno), NV

GE Energy is associated with all sorts of green energy projects, ranging from wind-, water-, and solar-powered energy, to the Smart Grid projects across the country. The GE Energy division I interviewed with deals with condition monitoring of instrumentation and services, to ensure that all of the turbines are working correctly and smoothly. I would be programming the software for the monitoring equipment, and other projects they are working on.

My interview with GE Energy was about 5 hours long. My favorite part was after the interview I was able to drive out to Lake Tahoe (about 25 minutes away) before my flight. The view was breathtaking, even in November!

Friday, November 6, 2009

Goldman Sachs - SLC, UT

This was my final (of 3) interviews with Goldman Sachs. All of Goldman Sachs' trading software is developed in-house, so I would be creating the software to allow people to trade their assets in the stock market, specifically with Private Wealth Management. Besides corrupt management and high bonuses, other things I would have to look forward to are work hours starting at 7am (to work the same hours as New York), and a free BlackBerry phone. Yipee!

My interview with Goldman Sachs was about 3 hours long. My favorite part was when this Chinese interviewee told one of the interviewers that he was surprised that she could do the job when she was a woman. I don't think he got offered a job...

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

GE Healthcare - Barrington (Chicago), IL

GE Healthcare has a range of products and services that include medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, drug discovery, and biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies. The GE Healthcare division I interviewed with deals with the software for all of the above projects. For example, when you used to get X-Rays the doctor would print out the X-Ray onto film and look at it under a light. The new software and technologies that GE Healthcare is creating allows doctors to receive and manage the X-Ray images directly on their computer.

My interview with GE Healthcare was about 3 hours long, however I was doing stuff with the other 25 interviewees all day and the previous evening. My favorite part was the "Dinner & Cocktails" that we had the night before where everyone got slammed except for me.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Clearwater Analytics - Boise, ID

Clearwater Analytics focuses on investment strategy and reporting. It allows a company to get an immediate snapshot of their financial reports & portfolios to let them know if they have any risks or transparencies.

My interview with Clearwater Analytics was about 3 hours long. This was probably my most difficult interview, mostly because everyone was really arrogant. Every time I came up with a right answer they would say something like "That's really good! But that's not how I would've done it..." My favorite part was when I left to go home.

All I can say is that was definitely a tiring week! All the interviews kind of get mixed up together, but I can honestly say like I felt like I did a pretty good job in all of them. I ended up getting offers from every company except the one in Boise! (so no real biggie, right?) But now you are probably wondering which job did I pick? Drum-roll please?
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This is where we are headed at the end of May!

I took the job at GE Energy as a Software Test Engineer. I officially start the end of May, but we'll be in Salt Lake from May 7th - 14th to say goodbye to everyone before we head out to Nevada (about 8 hours away from Salt Lake). If you want to see us before we leave you should call or text us so we can do something.

Come Sail Away

2010-03-27T19:26:00.000-07:00

We are going on a cruise for our first anniversary!

We are headed to the Mexican Riviera on the Carnival Splendor cruise ship. We'll spend two "fun days" at sea, then visit Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, and Cabo San Lucas the next three days, and then another "fun day" at sea on our way back to port.

We'll be sailing over the week of our anniversary, which is right before I start work in Nevada. We've heard nothing but excellent reviews from our friends about cruises, so we are excited for our first cruise and first anniversary.

Christmas is in the Air

2010-03-25T13:24:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I know its way past Christmas time, but I still wanted to get this done before it got much later. X spent a lot of time decorating our apartment during Christmas time, and I wanted to share some pictures of everything she did.

This is a Christmas count-down that my cousin Robin gave us for our wedding. When I was growing up we always did a Christmas countdown by adding cotton balls to Santa's beard, so I thought this was a fun tradition that we will be able to add to our Christmas decorations. While we had fun doing it together this year, I think it will be more fun for us later on when we have kids.

The glass block in the back was a gift from our close friend Allison last year for Christmas. X was excited to incorporate it into our decorations this year, along with a miniature Nativity set that we got from my mom. In this picture you'll also note our two Betta fish - this is the last picture of either of them alive.

And this is our miniature Christmas tree - Charlie Brown style. We actually inherited a full-size, artificial tree from my mom when she upgraded her tree, but it was too big for our apartment in its full size. So we just took off the top-most part of the tree and used that for our whole tree. It works just fine. We had a hard time choosing which ornaments to put on the tree (can you find the Christmas Pickle on our tree?) since we have so many - I grew up giving/receiving ornaments with my cousins every year - but I thought it all looked nice for the size of tree we had.

We hope you all had a merry Christmas... 3 months ago!

We Love Demolition Derbies!

2010-03-21T08:25:00.000-07:00

Call us what you will (white trash, rednecks, hicks, etc.) but X and I love demolition derbies! We jump at every opportunity to go, and have been to four different derbies in the last two years! We even have been to a derby where they competed with trucks and suburbans (instead of cars) - that one was intense, and definitely our favorite!

If you've never been to a demolition derby, or don't know what it is, here's a basic run-through of how it works: It is a motorsport event where a bunch of drivers compete in separate "heats" by deliberately ramming their vehicles into one another. Each car is required to hit another car at least once every two minutes or they are considered "out". The last two or three drivers in each heat whose vehicles are still operational move on to the next round. The last driver standing in the final round is declared the winner. It's mindless & raw automobile carnage, but its still a lot of fun to see cars running into each other at high speeds in a semi-controlled environment.

Cars lined up at the start of the first heat at the Weber County Fair.

A car smashes into the back of a station wagon. Most drivers try to ram with the back side of their car to prevent damage to the engine, but the red car decided not to use this tactic and crushed his front-end.

It's not uncommon to get splattered with dirt, mud, or car parts if you sit in the first couple of rows at the derby.

Sometimes cars are hit so hard they end up stuck on the side of the arena and can't get down to hit anyone else so they are deemed "out".

Trucks & Suburbans are lined up to start the final heat at the Cache Valley Demolition Derby.

A three-vehicle pileup at the truck & suburban derby.

It was hard to catch some of the bigger crashes on video because you never knew where to look since so many things were going on at once, but this one is a good shot of three trucks teaming up on someone in the middle.

With all the destruction that happens to the cars, fires are also a common occurrence at a derby.

I hope we see you all at the next derby!

Cellphone Revenge

2010-03-20T16:59:00.000-07:00

This was my cell phone.

I got the phone because I liked the sleek look, and the fact that it had the music controls on the outside. It wasn't long though, before I started to regret buying this phone. The phone started freezing randomly, flashing an all-white screen, and then would proceed to reboot (a process that takes several minutes). The touch-sensitive buttons on the outside would sometimes get triggered while in my pocket, so I would be in the middle of class or church and my phone would start playing randomly. And the battery life was horrible - I would have to charge it at least once a day. Even after I bought a new battery, within a few months I was back to daily charges. I started hating this phone, and each time it froze or died on me in the middle of the day, my loathing for it just increased.

I looked up the phone online (the Motorola "KRZR") and it seems that the problems I was having were not unique - lots of other people were experiencing the same ones as me! So after a good year and a half of putting up with this phone, I decided enough was enough. So I got a new phone and decided that it was time to get revenge on my phone.

This is what happens when you throw your phone repeatedly on the ground and run over it with your car.

If you have ever had a problem with your cell phone, I highly recommend the cell phone revenge therapy. It is DEEPLY satisfying!

If you do decide revenge is the right thing for you, and you're in to the whole Facebook thing, they have a group for people who hate their cell phones. While I don't believe in wasting away my own life on Facebook, you will probably enjoy posting your own story and pictures there.

Oregon Beach Fun

2010-03-19T16:22:00.000-07:00

Last summer my family took us to Oregon to visit my aunt and spend some time at the Oregon coast. The ocean water was freezing, but we all braved at least a little time running around in the waves.

When we weren't in the water, we spent our time building sand castles, flying kites, and throwing frisbees.

My brother Landon, X, and I spent one afternoon building this sand castle. We built our own walls, moat, and even added a gravel drawbridge out front!

I know I always say to stay tuned for updates at the end of my posts, but now that I've had most of Spring Break to get a lot of stuff taken care of, I'll be spending a lot of the rest of the break writing up some new updates.

Stay tuned ;)

Rivalry.

2009-12-09T13:02:00.000-08:00

Last year the BYU vs USU basketball game was a little different than usual. The biggest difference was that BYU head coach Dave Rose refused to bring his team of Cougars (aka cowards) up to Logan to play, and instead insisted on playing on "neutral ground". So all of the students at Utah State who were expecting to see their team play at home, instead had to drive all the way down to Salt Lake and pay for tickets to see their Aggies take on the Cougars at the ESA. There were a lot of frustrated students who just didn't understand why BYU couldn't come up. We were some of them.

This year when we saw that we were playing BYU again, and that this time they finally got the guts to come up to Logan, we were so excited! We couldn't wait to see how loud The Spectrum would get (the arena is ranked as one of the loudest venues in the nation). If you've never been to an Aggie home basketball game, you've got to try it once - it's insane!

X and I decided that we'd have some fun and that we were going to make our own posters for the game. Below is our handiwork:

We ended up going early to wait in line because we knew that the game was going to sell out. I went and stood in line at 10 the morning of the game, and X came to relieve me around 1:30. Then we both waited together the last few hours until the game started. We couldn't believe how many people showed up for the game. The place was packed! HUNDREDS of students were turned away because there weren't enough seats. Needless to say we had a GREAT time at the game. Both teams played hard, it was a struggle until the end, but our Aggies were able to pull through and get us our win that we deserved last year.

We were featured in the school newspaper as one of the top 10 posters at the game, and were even featured on some local newspaper's websites. Check out image 29 here and images 20 and 32 here. But I'd just recommend enjoying all of them.

Our Digs

2009-12-06T23:05:00.000-08:00

Well, after living here for 7 months, I guess its about time to show off our apartment to those of you who haven't come up and visited us yet (shame on you!) ;) I have the images setup to show you the "current" view of our apartment, but if you hover over the different images with your mouse it will show you a "before" view of how it first looked when we moved in.

Your First Look

We live on the upper level of a 2-story apartment complex (think of the heat benefits!), and after a short hike up a flight of stairs you'll find yourself in the doorway of our cozy apartment. Right away you'll step into our living room (after passing by our coat closet which also doubles as storage for our large variety of games), but don't be tempted to lay down on our sweet corduroy-blue sectional - its just too comfortable!

The Rest of the Living Room

We also have a nice bookshelf with some good reads. Not to mention a couple of vividly-colored beta fish that you could stare at for hours. And if you like to stare, just not at fish, take a look out our semi-french back doors where our spacious balcony give a great view to all of our neighbors!

Our Kitchen

Our kitchen theme is RED if you couldn't tell (we're still working on getting more red things) and we have a sweet 3-chair table that has hidden "leaves" inside. That's about all I have to say about this part of our apartment.

Our Bedroom

And this is our queen-size bed (part of a 5 piece set we got from a furniture outlet store) in the "master" bedroom. We now have a nice duvet set, and we just need to find some pillows for our shams. We also have another bedroom, but its mostly where we stored all of our junk for the apartment to look clean for these pictures. ;D

Other Random Pictures

This picture was taken on our first load of boxes from the car. I'm standing at about the edge of where our bed is currently.

X playing "Hide-and-Seek" in the spacious closet. You literally can get lost in the closets because they are so big. They are about 3 feet deep, and the doors go all the way to the ceiling!

Some of the decorations X has put up around the apartment. We also got a nice armoire where we can keep our TV and stereo equipment, but still keep our apartment looking nice and organized.

Well I hope this gives you a "taste" of where we live, but we'd love to have you come up to visit and see the rest. I promise there is plenty more that we haven't covered (like the salmon-colored bathroom) and we will even treat you to sushi! Hope to see you soon.

Interviews

2009-11-09T13:40:00.000-08:00

HELLOOO from Chicago!

I'm in the middle of my week of busy interviews and wanted to take a minute of my relaxation time here in the hotel to sit down and say hello to everyone. I know you are all probably anxiously sitting around wanting to hear from me (right...) but I think busy is good thing to be.

I have a number of good posts planned to update you on some things we've been doing since we got married, so I know I've said it before, but stay tuned! Finals are approaching so I can't promise anything for sure, but we're taking pictures, so you'll get it all eventually. Its like waiting for a new book or movie to come out. Sometimes the release date changes, but you always end up getting to see it (except in some circumstances, like the movies that were planned, then canceled, for Halo, or Ender's Game... but that won't happen here! hopefully...)

Anyways, good talkin' with ya!

Married

2009-10-07T20:10:00.000-07:00

It's long overdue... We're married!

Stay tuned - more to come about the last 5 months of married life!

TOP 5 is moving

2009-05-01T00:40:00.000-07:00

I've decided to move my TOP 5 series to a separate blog... ya know, to keep the business stuff away from my personal side... :) Anyways, if you are interested, you can find all the past and future TOP 5's here or at kcstop5.blogspot.com

Cheers!

Finally!

2009-04-30T23:14:00.000-07:00

Finals are over!
It's been a long week and it ended today with 2 finals (including one in accounting - yuck!). Now that it is all over, let's take a look back at what happened during the semester, but I was too busy to write about!

Donating Plasma

That's right. I've joined the ranks of the strung-out junkies selling my body for cash. It was an interesting experience, to say the least, going in my first time not really knowing what to expect. I'd heard all the rumors - "they use the BIGGEST needles you've ever seen!", "It hurts the entire time!", and "It takes like 5 hours!" - but none of them were true. The one thing that did surprise me was the color of the plasma. It looks like pee!

The donation itself wasn't actually even that bad though. Yeah, they stick you with a needle, but aside from the small pinch at the beginning and having to put pressure on your little wound at the end, the whole process is practically painless. It did take me about 3 and 1/2 hours my first time, but that was just because they had to explain to me what was going on and do some tests to make sure I wasn't really a strung-out junkie. Every time since has been less than 2 hours. If I go twice a week I can get $55 for the week. If I can do that every week will earn me an extra $220 a month, and if I can convince X to come with me that often that is $440 a month! Talk about a side-income! With the wedding approaching quickly and looking forward to paying for insurance, rent, and other "fun" aspects of responsibility, we need every dollar we can manage!

GUI Project

This semester in my GUI (Graphical User Interface) class I was assigned a project to design a functioning traffic-simulation program. I decided to tackle the analysis portion of the program where I had to design the section where someone could analyze difference data sets on multiple graphs. It was a very interesting project, and I really enjoyed the class. I'm so glad that I've found something that I'm good at and that I enjoy doing so much!

Advent Creative

This is the company that I started working for last September doing web development. I working for them throughout this semester and will start working full-time for them during the summer. Here are some of the websites I have helped build while working for them: Vooray, California Home Trading, Ascend Auto, and Mountain West Anesthesia. It has been great working for them and I've gained a lot of experience!

Planning a Wedding

This has probably made up the most stressful part of the semester for me. All the planning, looking at options, and talking about the countless options (none of which really interest any guy...) has worn me out. I'm just glad it'll all be over soon. I can't believe this much planning can go into one day! (well, 2 for us. We're having our reception the night before). Hope to see you all at the reception. May 19th from 6 - 8:30!

TOP 5 Barats & Bereta

2009-03-18T18:54:00.000-07:00

For those of you that haven't had a chance to experience a Barats & Bareta video, I hope that my TOP 5 favorites will give you a good look into some of their funniest work. Find out more at www.baratsandbereta.com

#5 - "Superhero Dunks"

#4 - "Just Wonderful"

#3 - "The Other Son"

#2 - "Cubicle Wars 2006"

#1 - "Mother's Day"

TOP 5 Worst Websites

2009-03-09T23:13:00.000-07:00

This is a TOP 5 that I've been looking forward to doing. Being a Web Developer, one thing that is vital to my job is creating a website that is easy to use, looks fantastic, and doesn't inflict bodily harm (or cause the user to want to inflict bodily harm to themselves) in any way. These website gems that I've uncovered are lacking in one or more (sometimes all) of those categories. I'll be sure to point out the key ares of a few of them that you just can't afford to miss. Enjoy!

(NOTE: IF YOU ARE PRONE TO SEIZURES, EPILEPSY, OR MOTION SICKNESS, SOME OF THESE SITES MIGHT NOT BE FOR YOU)

#5 - www.paperrad.org

To start us off today we have a website of this... children's cartoon? Not quite sure what is going on here, but if you click on the main image of the page (it says something about solving problems) you'll see a FANTASTIC video that might help explain a little bit more about the site.

#4 - www.dokimos.org/ajff

My favorite part of this website is, surprisingly, not the headache-inducing background, but instead the error-message at the top of the screen. Be sure you read it in order to get the full experience.

#3 - www.moire.ch

While this site may seem simple and innocent enough at first, after you start moving your mouse over the various links you will understand why this site makes it onto my list. Be sure you click on the link I posted above because they have updated their site. My link points to their old site before it was updated.

#2 - www.havenworks.com

This is a REAL news website. People actually come here to get their news. Now why someone would go here to get their news is beyond me, but if they can navigate the page, understand where they need to go, and not strain their eyes beyond belief... more power to them.

#1 - www.yvettesbridalformal.com

Okay. Just take a deep breath before you head on over to this one. It's gonna be BAD. Once you are at the home page wait for a second to make sure you get the full experience while the page/music loads. Then be sure you click the lady/lamb artwork to head over to the [even better] 2nd page. Isn't the floating image wonderful? Why does it change into that creepy face? Also for your further enjoyment you can view the map to Yvette's location that has been conveniently drawn up in MS Paint (located on the top-left of 2nd page - red text on gray box). Not only is this the worst website I've ever seen, but the music, floating images, and everything else combined together make me question the sanity of whoever designed it!

Introducing... The TOP 5

2009-03-04T22:43:00.000-08:00

I want to start a new series of posts called "The TOP 5" in which I will post lists, videos, websites, etc. of my TOP 5 picks in various subjects. Some ideas that I am currently working on include: TOP 5 worst websites, TOP 5 funny videos, TOP 5 Fast-Food Burger chains, TOP 5 feel-good videos, etc. I can't do this alone though, and I'll need your help in coming up with new ideas for TOP 5 categories. You'll also be able to read over my TOP 5's and add comments or add your own submissions on what you think I left out or shouldn't have included. I'll look forward to hearing your ideas!

It's OFFICIAL!!!

2009-02-12T21:39:00.000-08:00

In-N-Out Burger is FINALLY coming to Northern Utah! You have no idea how long I (and so many others) have waited for this moment. Tears of joy came to my eyes as I watched this video.

For those of you who have never been able to experience a Double-Double Animal Style, I highly recommend that you high-tail it to In-N-Out when it opens (projected for Fall 2009)

Software Development Isn't A Cakewalk

2009-01-22T11:58:00.000-08:00

So I read this blog entry forwarded by a friend to me. It thought it was interesting because I think it highlights the mentality that many people have about computer science. How many time have you said to yourself, "This isn't rocket science, all we need is a programmer to do [insert complicated feature here]". Anyway, I thought it was an interesting and wanted to share it with you to hopefully change your mentality if you ever find yourself in need of someone like me in your future.

Here's the link: http://codeclimber.blogspot.com/2008/04/all-i-need-is-programmer.html

The article rings true to me because I have had several people just over the last semester talk to me about helping them or someone they know to build a website or application. Even my roommate approached me to ask about building a website for his dad to sell something online. I told them it would be a lot of work and that I didn't have time, and they all seemed stunned.

Computer Science is hard work. My boss at work told me that he read an article about how software development was compared in difficulty to physics and rocket science. I haven't read it so I don't know what exactly was said, but if I can get that article from him or if I find it online, I'll post it on here.

Anyways, thanks for listening to my rant. That is all.

Distorted Reality

2008-12-30T10:53:00.000-08:00

X's laptop has a cool program on it called Photo Booth that lets you take pictures with various effects added to them. Needless to say we have had a lot of fun with these effects and have turned out a bunch of funny pictures. I wanted to share some of our favorites that we have taken over the last year:

This one always makes me chuckle. With my eyebrows pointed down and my creepy smile, it looks like I'm up to no good

X looks just so sweet and innocent in this picture! No one would ever guess there's a raging spirit within...

This one always reminds me of this kid named Ganton who worked with me at Adagio. Gotta love the double-chin action

X looks a little... handicapped in this one ;)

I think this one and the one above it make me look like a black guy...

For some reason I always thought this one made me look like Joe Camel...

Talk about a cleft chin!

My tiny mouth, raised eyebrow, and the little tuft of hair at the top make this one a priceless little gem

This one is my ultimate favorite. I don't know what it is about this picture, but the look on my face just gets me. I couldn't stop laughing after we took this picture, and it still makes me laugh every time I see it

It's amazing how different these effects can make you look! Which one is your favorite? Leave your vote in a comment below!

2nd Time's the Charm

2008-11-18T23:32:00.000-08:00

I can now officially call myself an engaged man again. I must say it feels good to be able to say that I'm "taken" and that I know there is someone else out there who wants nothing more than to spend the rest of her life with me. This entry is dedicated to the love of my life, Katherine X Howell!

Lots of people (Allison) have been bugging me to get a blog posted about how the proposal happened, so this is here for those of you that just love to here this kind of mushy stuff. If you don't care for the "Awww..." moments, I suggest you leave now!

As some of you may know, my first date with X was to the Jon Schmidt concert last year. I took X again this year and was hoping to propose to her that evening. I wanted to propose to her under the stars out on the QUAD, and every day that week it had been clear skies and the stars were very bright. But lo and behold, the day of the concert it was overcast and rainy. Perfect. So I had to bail on my plans for that evening, but I kept a watchful eye on the weather.

It was a whole 2 weeks until another clear night up here in Logan! X and I had gone to the USU basketball game that evening and when we came out I noticed that the sky was clear. I was pretty excited. We hung out for the rest of the night until about midnight, and then I walked her home. On my way home I texted her and told her I had noticed that the stars were really bright that night, and asked if she wanted to go star-gazing. She gladly accepted and so we started getting all dressed up for the cold.

My first task at hand was finding out where I wanted to keep the ring. I didn't to put it in my pants pocket because it would really bulge out when I sat down, and I didn't want to put it in my coat pocket, because X likes to keep her hands warm in my coat pocket. I ended up deciding to put it in the hood of my hoodie. It was ingenious! It was a nice little pocket for it, it didn't bulge, and there was very little chance that she would reach in there for anything.

We left and drove up to the QUAD and laid out some blankets to look at the stars. We ended up getting to cold sitting on the ground so we decided to stand and do a sort of cuddle-dance as we looked up into the sky. It was at this point that I said my "back was itchy" and reached into my hood to grab the ring box. Of course I made it seem like I was scratching my back so she had no idea. I'm a sneaky one! Then I put my hand behind her back again and we continued to dance/cuddle for a little bit. I was really lucky though, because right after I took the ring box out X offered to put my hood on for me, so I got it out just in time!

After a while X was starting to get tired (I could tell because she was putting her head on my shoulder and I could feel her leaning a lot of her weight into me) so I knew I was going to have to act soon. I told her to look up into the sky and see if she could find any stars that she liked. (***MUSHY ALERT!***) As she was looking up into the sky I told her that I could see a beautiful star. She asked me where, and I told her right in front of me. Then she looked back up into the sky (and I secretly brought my hand out from behind her back) and I told her that I could see a sparkly star. She asked me where again and I directed her gaze down in-between us where I had the ring. She gasped and I got down on one knee and proposed.

The funny thing is that X was more interested in how I managed to do it all rather than answer my proposal. I told her I would tell her everything if she said yes. Now she knows. :)

A special thanks goes out to Andrew Hardman who came out and endured the cold night to take these awesome pictures. Thanks Andrew!

MasterControl

2008-11-05T23:58:00.000-08:00

I know it seems like it was forever ago, but I thought I should post something about the internship I had this past summer. I was hired by MasterControl, Inc. as a software engineer to work on their document control software. Now I know what you are thinking... "What kind of a name is MasterControl?" I was thinking the same thing when I applied for a job. It just sounded like some big, robotic machine that would walk around and say "I am MasterControl" over and over again in a big robotic voice. I imagined that it would probably look something like this:

Anyways, it turned out that MasterControl was a lot more than just that, but unfortunately I am signed to secrecy about what exactly it was that we worked on while employed there. But we had a whole lot of fun and I learned that I never want to test software for bugs! They had us work in a couple of different departments and everyone's least favorite was verification. That department is in charge of making sure the fix that a programmer made actually fixed the problem and didn't make new problems. It was pretty boring those 2 weeks!

There were 5 interns that were hired on for the summer, but only 4 ended up showing up on the first day and we all made it through the entire summer. Here is a picture of us interns. My, don't we all look so happy?

From left to right we have Chris Derrick, Jonathan Mitchell, Brandon Johnson, and me!

INTERN BIOS
Chris Derrick: Chris is a student from the University of Utah. He and I didn't seem to get along very well from the start, but it probably had something to do with the fact that Brandon and I liked to pull pranks on him all the time. Some of my favorite ones include:
-Installing a program on his computer that allowed us to send custom error alerts to his computer and eventually ended up convincing him that his computer hated him.
-Causing his computer to shutdown anytime that he tried to open Internet Explorer.
Ahhh. Those were some good times.

Jonathan Mitchell: Jon (Yes its Jon, not John. Get it right!) is a student from Brigham Young University and is originally from Oregon. Jon liked to eat Hot & Spicy Cheez-Its and got me hooked on them over the summer. I didn't really get to know Jon very well over the summer as he spent most of his lunches playing video games, playing with his rubik's cube, or talking to his wife on the phone.

Brandon Johnson: Brandon is a fellow student from Utah State University and was probably the best part of MasterControl for me. Everyday I looked forward to hearing his sassy remarks and together we'd think of new ways to trick Chris into thinking his computer was possessed.

SUMMER ACTIVITIES
MasterControl had a lot of fun activities during the summer. Unfortunately (fortunately, really) I traveled a lot this summer so I ended up missing some of the events, but here are some highlights on what I was able to do this summer.

The MasterControl Summer Carnival - This was a family event where everyone from the company came and we had food and a water fight and such. My mom and X were the only family that wanted to come with me, but we still had fun (sorta). Probably the best part of the whole thing was the Christmas-colored t-shirts we now have and enjoy working out in. Thanks MasterControl! [Robotic Response: "You are welcome"]

Ping-Pong - MasterControl had a ping-pong table in their conference room, and us interns would take a break about once a week and go play ping-pong for 30 minutes or so to keep us sane. I won't lie and tell you that the occurence of these ping-pong breaks didn't increase as the end of summer neared.

"Dart-Man" - Whenever MasterControl hires a new employee they introduce them at the next company meeting and play a game where the employee can win some cash. Usually they play "2 truths and a lie" and for each person you fool you get $1, but for our meeting when we were introduced they decided to try a new game. Each intern was given 3 "Dart-man", which essentially are sticky darts shaped like little men, and we had to throw them at a wall with different prizes associated with different targets. Some of the prizes included Dinner for 2 at the steakhouse, an old company laptop, gift certificates, and such, but the big prize was a small target (about the size of a small sandwich plate) and it was worth $200! There was also a large picture of a $1 bill and if you hit that with your dart-man then all of the employees each received $1. Everyone who went before me all tried for the $200, and when it was my turn the boss said that he wanted to make things a little more tricky and decided to put the $200 target on top of the $1 target, so if you missed you would end up wasting your chance on the $1 prize. Here is a little diagram of what I am talking about:

<= This is what it looked like before my turn

This is what it looked like on my turn =>

Needless to say I wasn't thrilled that I suddenly felt like all chances for the $200 prize had gone down the drain. So my first two throws I tried in vain to get one of the other prizes, but on my third try I figured I had nothing to lose and so I might as well try for the $200, and if I miss everyone else gets a buck and they'll be happy. So I carefully took aim and made the throw. The dart-man went straight into the $200 target! I was thrilled and everyone was cheering for me. I ended up getting 200 $1 bills because they had so many of them just in case they needed to do a big payout. I thought that it would be funny to roll around in the money like Scrooge McDuck, but I decided not too cause I didn't want to smell like cash.

Overall, I enjoyed my experience at MasterControl. I had a lot of fun, I learned a lot, and felt like I added some value to myself as an employee. The major language I learned at MasterControl is called ColdFusion and having some experience in that helped me get a job up here in Logan so I am definitely happy about that. Look for a post in the future about my new job!

"TAG"

2008-11-05T00:16:00.000-08:00

I was "tagged" by Allison and I'm supposed to upload the 6th picture in my picture folder. Usually I just out-right refuse doing stuff like this, but this time my curiosity got the better of me and I had to check what my 6th picture was. Well, I keep all my pictures pretty well-organized into different folders and such, so I went to the 6th folder and chose the 6th picture. And here it is:

This is Amanda after playing the "flour" game in which the loser has to dig their face around in the flour to try to find the hidden coin. Its great fun all around.

I tag anyone who reads this blog?

Pumpkin Carving Extravanza 2008

2008-10-27T19:52:00.000-07:00

For those of you that know me pretty well, you know that when it comes to Halloween one thing I get really excited about is pumpkin carving. Every year I like to try something new, and really try to out-do myself from the year before.

This is a picture of the pumpkin I carved last year.

As you can see I like to try new things. Last year I just found a USU logo and created the stencil myself to make it work with my pumpkin. I'm always looking for new ideas and creations to try on a pumpkin.

Last weekend X asked me on a date, and I was thrilled to hear that we would be carving pumpkins for our date. I don't think she knew how much I enjoyed carving, but she soon found out! X did some research and discovered that Macey's was selling pumpkins for 12 cents/lb. so we began our journey Thursday morning to find ourselves the perfect pumpkins.

At Macey's we started digging through the pumpkins and I soon realized that I was going to have to do some climbing to get to the untouched pile of pumpkins in the back. X cheered me on as I made my way to the back, climbing over the pumpkins but distributing my weight so that I wouldn't crush any of the pumpkins along the way. As I was making my way to the back I saw this really ugly and deformed pumpkin and asked X why anyone would ever want to buy a pumpkin like that. She just shrugged her shoulders and we kept looking until we found the right pumpkins for us.

Now before I go any further, you have to understand that choosing the right pumpkin is an art in and of itself. Sometimes you choose a pumpkin based on an idea of what you want to carve; other times you find a nice-looking pumpkin and decide what you want to choose based on your pumpkin. And other times a pumpkin chooses you. This was the case for me at Macey's that fateful Thursday morning, I just didn't know it yet.

After we each chose a pumpkin we walked inside the store to make our purchase. For some reason I couldn't get the ugly, deformed pumpkin out of my head. I kept reminding me of... something... We were waiting in line to pay when it finally came to me. The pumpkin looked like a giant peanut! It was large and round at the bottom, and also large and round at the top, but in the middle it kinda went in and made it look like a peanut. My mind quickly raced as I thought of what I could do with it, when my eye caught on a package of Planter's Peanuts with a big picture of Mr. Peanut on the side. Golden. I told X to wait in line and raced outside to go find my Mr. Peanut Pumpkin before anyone else could find that wonderful (ugly & deformed) pumpkin. I was glad to see that it was still sitting there in the pile, untouched.

Saturday night we went out for dinner to Panda Express, and then came back for a night of carving enjoyment. We had 3 pumpkins to carve, and only knew what was going to go on the Mr. Peanut pumpkin, so we set to work at finding designs for the other two. X came across a few sites with some really good designs, and I found one that I wanted to do. We tried to find another design that would go well with mine, but the only place we could find one was charging money to view the design. So X decided to go with a design out of the carving kit that I had purchased last year. Luckily X had her camera phone with her while we were carving so she snapped a few pictures during the night. I had to run back to my apartment to get my camera after the pumpkins were ready & lit.

Here are a couple pictures of the carving of Mr. Peanut. The pumpkin was so uniquely-shaped the it was really hard getting the stencil to conform to the surface of the pumpkin! I had to tape it up a lot to make it work just right. X thought the tape-job looked pretty pitiful so she snapped a picture for us to always remember.

Here are the final pumpkins that we carved. X did a really awesome job. This was her first time carving using a stencil, and she surprised both of us when her pumpkin turned out flawless. The window pane and spider's web were the hardest part but she did a great job! Mr. Peanut turned out better then I could've hoped for. It was hard finding a usable image online that was large enough and looked right, so I just ended up blowing up the image myself and edited it to work for what I needed it to look like. Photoshop rocks!

You might be wondering about that 3rd pumpkin I mentioned and where it is. Well, we spent so much time working hard on these pumpkins that we didn't get finished until after midnight, so I decided to finish up the 3rd pumpkin Sunday afternoon. Below are the pictures of that one... Mario!

Doesn't the light totally make a difference on that one? After we found the Mario design we tried to find one of Princess Peach, but were unsuccessful at finding any except for the one to purchase. Oh well, maybe next year. Thanks for the fun date X!

Gotcha! starts tomorrow

2008-10-05T22:38:00.000-07:00

Well we've had our sign-ups and it looks like we have 29 people playing in this Gotcha! Tournament. It was a lot more work than I though it was going to be to create all the cards and organize everyone's target! I'm really glad that 150 people didn't end up signing up to play!

Depending on how this tournament goes will depend on if we do it again. We have a couple of friends who write articles in The Statesman (The USU Newspaper) and one of them wants to write an article about us and Gotcha! We'd like to organize a larger game encompassing several different apartment buildings in the spring, but I think it'll depend on how well this round goes if we decide to do another one.

I know I haven't been doing very well at keeping this Blog updated, but a lot of my time has been going in to getting Gotcha! setup. Hopefully now that everything has been put together I will have more time to actually do something else in my life worth mentioning!

Gotcha!

2008-09-19T00:25:00.000-07:00

I remember in high school seeing posters advertising something called "Gotcha!", but I never really knew what it was until it had already begun. Gotcha! is essentially a massive game of tag, except every player is assigned a specific target and there is someone targeting them at the same time. You can find out more about gotcha by visiting www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin_(game)

In my highschool's version of Gotcha!, in order to eliminate your target you had to get them wet somehow - whether it be with a squirt gun, a hose, or a cup of water. Needless to say it sounded like a lot of fun, but unfortunately it was too late for me to join since the game had already started, so I had to sit this one out.

Fast forward to my Spring Semester of my freshman year up here at Utah State University. I was living on campus, and one day I saw a big poster in our hallway advertising a game of Gotcha! I think I was the first one signed up to play! This game didn't use water however - I think it was because they didn't want students to have water guns up on campus or anything. Instead we used chalk. At first I thought it was kinda funny. But then as the game began and we saw how it worked (you'd mark your target with the chalk to "eliminate" them, I thought it really was a good idea. Not only did it NOT leave you soaked after you got eliminated (and upset if you'd just spent the morning getting all ready) but it was easy to clean up the chalk mark! I didn't end up winning that game, but I enjoyed playing. I thought it would be fun to play again sometime.

Fast forward now to last year. I roomed with my friend Dave from high school (who incidentally played in the Gotcha! that was put on by our school) and we talked about playing it a little bit and thought it would be fun to setup a game of our own. It didn't go much further than that, but still I kept the idea in the back of my head. Dave and I roomed together again this year and when I brought up the idea again of organizing our own game, Dave said "Let's do it!" and we began making plans.

Now let me tell you, organizing a game like this and figuring out all the logistics is no easy task! Dave and I have spent countless hours going over different rules, situations, and even legal documents (to make sure we weren't held liable in case of an accident) in preparation to start this game. We've sent emails to the residents living in the same apartment community as us, and over 60 people responded within a few days stating that they definitely wanted to play! We even created our own blog for the participants to visit to find out the rules and how to sign up. Check it out: www.usugotcha2008.blogspot.com. Dave, X, and me all drew up separate logos for Gotcha! to put on fliers and the blog. X's ended up totally being the best, and that is her drawing above.

So next week our registration begins, and we are planning to start the game the week after. We'll make laminated 3x5 cards with the pictures and names of each player and assign those out to the various players as their "targets". And we decided to use chalk! :) All in all it should be a lot of fun. A lot of work too, but I think overall it will be a great experience. I'm glad that I had Dave here to prod me into this, because now I can check "Setup a Gotcha! Game" off my list of things to do before I die.

Beardy

2008-09-12T22:41:00.000-07:00

This summer our family was able to go to California to see our grandparents and to visit a few theme parks. Unfortunately I forgot my razor at home, so by the end of the trip I had started to grow a little... let's say "fuzz". Landon thought it was funny to rub my chin, and challenged me to grow out a beard. I'd always wanted to see if I could do it, and X approved it, so I decided to commit to not shaving for a whole month no matter how bad it looked. After about a week I looked really ragged and shabby. But I promised myself that I was going to persevere.

This picture is about 2 weeks into my trial. By now it had already started getting pretty itchy, but I kinda liked the way it felt. X said that it made me look "rugged" and that it was softer than she thought it was going to be. So far so good!

Finally, after 4 long weeks, I had reached my goal. Here is a picture that X took of me with her phone with my "full" beard:

I decided that the beard didn't look too shabby on me, and I kept it for another month. It filled in pretty nicely, and most everyone said I looked a lot older. Several people even said I looked like a crazy beatnik. But X was starting to get tired of it and soon said enough was enough. I had told her that I would shave it off as soon as she asked me to, so when she asked me asked me to shave I did it the next day. Of course I decided to have a little bit of fun with it in the process. Below is a compilation of pictures I took with my phone during the shaving process. I realize there is a lot of blackmail potential in these pictures, but I think they are fun and wanted to share them.

This picture makes me think of a tough guy from the 70's. Big chops and a goatee. Classic. And you gotta love the healthy glow radiating from off the top of my head.

Here you have me with the mustache and chin warmer.

And here is one with just the 'stache. One of my friends kindly put it that I look "just like a greasy mexican car salesman". Thanks Brady. It does kinda look like a mexi-stache though...

And lastly, you gotta go with the Hitler. I took another picture of a better looking Hitler, but it ended up getting lost in the mix, so this is the best you get. I love my expression here. Priceless.

Well, that about does it for me in the adventures of beard-land. I'm sure X will probably never let me experiment around with it again. Although I did discuss the possibility of making a short-film with Brady. It would star me playing 4 different characters - A 70's tough guy, a greasy mexican car salesman, a Neo-Nazi, and me with a beard.

Welcome

2008-09-12T21:20:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my blog! This is where you'll find all sorts of updates about me, my life, and all my goings on. Stay tuned to find out about all the craziness that happens to me, and why I say my life is always running a mile a minute. There is a ton going on up at school and life, so i'll try my best to keep you updated on what is going on. Catch you later!