Trip to Target

Yesterday, I went on a trip to Target with Shanna to buy some stuff, I don't remember what. But while I was there, I made some observations that I have thought about quite a bit since then.

Observation 1.
Target carries golf equipment. All sorts of stuff. Putters, drivers, towels, bags, etc. Target carries frisbee equipment. Mainly just frisbees. However, Target does not carry frisbee golf equipment. This is in my opinion a major oversight on their behalf. It's kind of like carrying black cookies, and carrying white frosting, but not carrying oreos. Kind of like that.... So holiday shoppers, if you're looking to give the gift of a 175 gram driver disk to that special someone this Christmas, you won't find it at Target.

Observation 2.
Whoever has the job of building miniature tents to put on display at stores has it going on! Can you imagine your boss coming in to you and saying, "Hey Jack, we're going to need this tent, but about 20 times smaller." He spends all day sewing mini tents. He probably burns the midnight oil sewing extras that he can sell on the side to the Borrowers and other holiday shoppers looking for the Barbie Let's Camp collection that just sold out. Now I've realized that these miniature models have run over to sleeping bags as well. Seriously, I'll bet they could sell them for Barbie...

Observation 3.
For some reason, people take their kids Christmas shopping with them. Not only does it spoil the surprise of Christmas Day, but it clogs the aisles with those extra long look like a race car style shopping carts. A single one of those can block the entire aisle. Then you have kids hanging out the sides, grabbing toys, and causing trouble. You can always tell that the parents are fed up with it all.

Observation 4.
I really want a large hi-def flat screen tv with a blu-ray dvd player. Movies are really cool looking on those. It's like real people inside of your tv.

CO Close Call

Had a scary experience today. I was working downstairs in the PARACad lab today with some other people when we heard a siren-type noise. It sounded like a police car but inside the Clyde Building. I looked at the person next to me and said, "I wonder what that was...". She later left for a class and returned about 2 hours later.

When she got back she told me what had happened. This is how I heard it. I don't know for sure if it is true or not. She said that there is a lab in the Clyde basement that has Carbon Monoxide tanks that exploded. The alarm was the carbon monoxide alarm. Apparently, the people from that lab evacuated everybody from the basement,.....except for us. I mean, what's the deal? If you're going to evacuate the basement,...evacuate the whole basement. In the mean time, I was studying and I got a huge headache and felt really drowsy. Luckily I'm ok. If I had died, nobody would have heard my story.

Next Week's Police Beat

At nine o'clock AM on Tuesday Nov. 4th, police were called to investigate reported gun shots behind the Clyde Building. Cautiously, two patrol cars investigated the situation. As they poked their car nose around the corner, they saw nothing but a group of students huddled in a circle. Slowly they approached using all of their investigative skills. As they drew close to the group, the students looked up and laughed. The huddle parted to reveal a formula one race car. It was found that the "gunshots" were actually caused by the student built race car backfiring repeatedly. The officers told the students to try to get the engine timing problems worked out.

Don't be surprised if you see this in the Police Beat next week. It happened to us today. It was really funny. The officers were being so cautious. Then they were really relieved to see it was just us. Eventually a ME faculty member told us that we had to stop the engine because there were too many people around without earplugs even though there was a whole cubby full of earplugs in the facility. He said not to run it again until we had the problems worked out. The only thing is, we have to run it to iron out the problems.

Well, the car is running now anyway.

It's time...

Recently, I have read, heard and watched all about the headlines following Proposition 8 in California and a similar define marriage amendment in Arizona. I didn't think that I had anything to add to the debate. I still don't think that I have anything to add. I guess it's time for me to say what I have to say. It's not much, but it came to my mind while I was reading the scriptures, so that's why I decided to share.

First of all, it's such a blessing to be raised in the LDS church and have been taught about families and gospel principles from my youth. I find it an enormous blessing also to be able to attend BYU with its large support and sponsorship from the church. I hear stories about schools in Massachusetts or wherever about teachers teaching the little children about gay marriage. I hear stories about how protests by good people against these schools have no effect because of certain laws or societal values. I'm just glad that no matter what, my school, my home, and my church will never teach that. My children will know the truth. I read an article today about recall elections at some predominately liberal school in California because 9 out of 15 members of the school's student association support proposition 8. I can't really even imagine what it would be like to go to school with people who can't even stand to have someone stand up for the institution of marriage. That story blew my mind.

Anyway, I guess that's all that I really have to say. But just the thought that someday when I have children going to school, no matter what they are taught there, God's truth will still be taught at home and church brings me comfort. So thanks to all who have done so much more than me to properly define marriage as between a man and a woman. Keep doing as much good as you can, then sit back and rely on God's promises.

Book Review: Jonny Magic and the Card Shark Kids

This book is a biography of Jon Finkel, a professional gambler who has appeared in the World Series of Poker who got his card playing start from the game Magic: The Gathering. I found the book very interesting because it not only talks about Finkel, but about the actual games (Magic, Blackjack, Poker, etc.) and the hundreds and thousands of kids who were influenced by them; especially Magic. The author clearly depicted the culture of the Magic tournaments as well as the type of people who were drawn to it (generally smart nerdy kids who dont have the ability to excell athletically). I guess this was interesting to me because I played Magic for a while with some of my friends, so I knew a little bit about it already. Even though I don't gamble, I enjoyed reading about how Finkel and his team of card counters and big players took casinos for tens of thousands of dollars in a single night and then wok eup the next evening to do it again. If you enjoyed the game Magic or the movie 21 at all, this book would be an interesting read for you also. I give it a rating of 1.5 out of 3.

A Few Pearls of Wisdom

Well, I'm only 23 years old (almost 24) but I feel like I still have a few nougat filled morsels of wisdom that I can pass on to a lot of people. Enjoy...

1. Rules are usually rules for a good reason and yes, they do apply to you. - A lot of times, people think that rules somehow don't apply to them. I see this all the time at work. People carelessly take a Jamba Juice into the theaters even though it's posted in 3 inch letters not to. This almost always results in a large carpet cleaning job. They blatantly cross caution tape and wet wax signs in order to tromp through the hallway, leaving their size 9's imprinted in the otherwise glassy floor wax. But I guess the most blatant abuse of a rule was witnessed by me this morning on my way to work. Imagine my surprise when I looked up at Y Mountain in the early twilight to find it on fire! What happened was no mystery to me. Obviously, some geek decided to light fireworks on the Y in honor of Pioneer Day and shot a roman candle into a dry tinder-ized bush. The fire spread from the bottom right corner of the Y to cover about 1/8th of the mountain face. Here's a tip... Next time, when the firework stand says don't shoot off fireworks on the mountain... DON'T DO IT!!

2. Global Warming is real. - If you don't believe me on this one, go ride your bike behind a bus for 15 seconds.

3. If you see a movie on the opening night, DON'T talk about it except the following subjects: who acts in it, if you liked it or not, if it was scary, the amazing graphics, and if you would see it again at full price. Nobody wants to know how so-and-so kills who's-it. They don't want to know what amazing trick the protagonist does on a unicycle to save the damsel from the mutant cheese blob. Just keep it to yourself. There are great things called journals and tape recorders that would be glad to listen to you. But seriously..... I had the whole beginning of Batman: The Dark Knight ruined for me at work this past week by one kid who's seen it twice already. Show a little respect.

4. If you don't know how to do something, ask. - There's a kid who really has this one down at work. Yesterday, he was asked to sweep the floor. He said ok, but then asked, "After I sweep it, what do I do with the stuff I sweep up?" I guess he's never used a dustpan before... Now, he may not be the brightest bulb in the box, but he figures out what he needs to do and then he does it.

Most who read this blog have probably already mastered these traits. But I know that you know people who haven't, so spread the word.

Fundamental(ist) Difference

So I've read in the news lately that just as the LDS church has put out statements to establish the difference between the LDS church and the FLDS church, the FLDS church has also put out statements to emphasize the similarities of the two denominations. My feelings on this topic are mixed. While I know that they claim to believe the Book of Mormon and modern revelation and such, it bugs me because obviously if they had believed those things they would have understood the path by which revelation comes (that being through the Prophet, quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Stake Presidents, etc.) and believed that the Lord works through his Twelve Apostles and their breakaway sect wouldn't even exist.
I don't really get it. They disagree with the church leaders and apostatize. They determine the will of the Lord for themselves and create their own prophet. Then they go back and say, "Hey look, we've got so much in common with these people who we left." I guess all I know is that the Lord knows all things and will guide us where we ought to be. He will never lead us astray. If we follow we're blessed. If not, then we're on dangerous ground.

Book Review: Positively False

This is the book written by Floyd Landis stripped 2006 Tour de France winner. The subtitle of the book is "The real story of how I won the Tour de France". The first half of the book is a general biography showing how he got into pro cycling. The second is about the Tour doping accusations. Starting out the book, I knew that it would be all about how the claims were preposterous. The events are laid out in chronological order and are very detailed. I sometimes wonder how authors can remember word for word what was said to them or by them, but that's getting off topic. I really enjoyed the storytelling.

The book really takes off after the Tour when he is accused of doping. I'll come right out and say it,... I believe that Landis should not have lost his title. I'm not saying that I'm positive that he didn't dope, but his team of supporters found mistake after mistake in the testing and procedures. The arguments made by him and his defense team are very viable and after reading I feel like the test was botched beyond a reasonable doubt and that his result should not have been deemed positive. There are a few main points which are explained in detail throughout the book and in pointing these out, Landis questions both the procedures, desires, and accuracy of WADA and the USADA, the world and united states anti-doping agencies.

It's a great read and leaves you with both the evidence and defense for you to make up your mind. Again I give a 3/3. (Maybe because I find the subject matter so interesting)

First Crash

Well, there is a first for everything, and today is the first time that I have crashed on my new bike. I'm actually kind of embarrassed by it too. You see, I'd like to say that I was soaring down a steep road when a car pulled out in front of me. I'd like to say that it was either bail on the side of the road or eat a big fat delivery truck tail pipe...But I can't. All I can say is that my stupid pedal clips were strapped on too tight.

I was out on a ride around and through BYU campus when I decided that I had better be prepared for my big bike trek tomorrow to Saratoga Springs, 25 miles each way. So I pulled off the road next to Outdoors Unlimited to pick up some spare tubes and a water bottle. As I stopped my bike on the sidewalk, I pulled my right foot out of the pedal strap and began shifting my weight to my left side. Simultaneously, I pulled my left foot out of my pedal strap and planted my foot firmly on the ground. I noticed something was wring when my weight continued to shift further and further to the left. Alas, I hadn't pulled my foot out of the pedal clasp. By then I knew I was going down, but in the 2 seconds or so before I hit, I tried unsuccessfully about 50 more times to pull my foot out. I hit the cement, foot still firmly attached to the pedal. I reached down, loosened the strap and pulled it out.

I could tell immediately that I wasn't hurt bad. I basically fell straight over on my side from a complete stop. I began to do a little self examination. Head,...check. Shoulder,...check. Wrist,...ouch! My wrist was really sore. I figured that it was just an impact injury that would go away in a few minutes. In the meantime, I went inside to transact my business. On my way out, I glanced down my leg which was covered in black grease and oil. I noticed a weird red pattern. It took me a while, but I figured out that my front two chainrings had cut my leg up pretty good. Luckily they weren't bleeding a lot. As I mounted my bike, I realized that I couldn't put any pressure on my wrist or squeeze without pain. I continued on my ride trying to decide whether to finish early or go the whole route. I was dead set on ending early, but when I got to my turn, I decided I had recovered enough to finish the whole thing. I hope that you enjoy the cool design that my chainrings left in my leg. I know I will for a few weeks...

Great Start, But Still Depressing,...Sort Of

Well, it's been 5 days now in the 300 mile challenge and as of right now, I have ridden 77.7 miles. That leaves me with 222.3 miles to go. Shanna and I rode up to Bridal Veil Falls on the Fourth of July, which was such a nice ride that I wanted to do it again. So I did it again today. The ride is very flat (except for the portion right next to Wymount which is very steep) and can go fairly quickly. The ride is 19.7 miles long, which added about 40 miles to my total in just 2 days. If I ever fall behind in my goal, this is a ride that I can catch up with. It is not difficult at all to do daily.

The only depressing part of my start this month is that today the Tour de France started. That's not depressing in and of itself, I actually am excited to follow the action this year. The depressing part is that today's stage was 197.5 kilometers long. That is equal to around 123 miles. So, while I've been working on my goal for 5 days now, the riders in the tour rode farther than me in one day. Not even a day. In 4 hours. Today I rode the 20 mile trail in just over an hour. That means that if I had ridden it four times for a total of just under 80 miles, the other tour riders would still be 40 miles past me. I guess it's not so much depressing as amazing how fast tour riders really are. And their Stage 1 ride involved climbing up mountains too....

ASICS' 300 Mile Challenge

18.16 down, 281.84 to go.

That's right, only 282 miles until I finish my race. I have entered the ASICS' 300 mile challenge. "What is that?" I hear you ask... Well it is exactly what it sounds like. Basically ASICS is sponsoring a contest through www.mapmyrun.com that encourages people to get in shape. There are three challenges. 1. The cycle 300 miles in a month challenge, 2. The run 100 miles in a month challenge, 3. The walk a marathon in a month challenge. I decided to try my luck with challenge number 1. I'm pretty excited about it too since I have a new bike that is pretty lightweight and fast. It's by far the best bike that I have ever owned and I want to make it worth my money. Basically, if I complete this challenge, my bike will have cost less that 1 dollar per mile ridden on it. (The website keeps track of stuff like that)

Anyways, seeing as my commute to and from work every morning is about 1.8 miles total, if you round that to 2 miles and multiply by 5 days a week and 4 weeks a month, that comes to a total of 40 miles, leaving 260 to be ridden by me to complete the challenge. I think that I can do it. I've been reading the Lance Armstrong book which really got me interested in cycling as a sport. Not that I'm going to go out and try to become a professional cyclist or anything, but I will do more of it. Now I'm reading about Floyd Landis, the Tour de France champion who had his title stripped from him for doping allegations which he adamantly denies. It's pretty good. Look for a review of it when I finish.

Check back on the blog for updates on how far I've ridden this month. Ill try to post regularly so you can keep up on my riding. (Not that you would even want to) It's like following the Tour de France, only I will take a month and not three weeks, and I'm way slower than them, and my rides are easier, and there is only one rider, and it's not a race....I think you get the point.

Book Review: It's Not About the Bike

This book is an autobiography written by Lance Armstrong (winner of the Tour de France 7 consecutive times) and it has the subtitle "My journey back to life". The book details Armstrong's childhood and early years as a professional cyclist, his battle with cancer, and his first Tour de France victory. The book has a very strong message and is very inspirational. In describing what he went through he illustrates that we all have our challenges and that we can overcome them if we put our mind to it. I was pretty amazed by the description of his cancer treatment. Before reading, I really didn't know what chemotherapy was. I thought that it was where they shoot you with radiation... I think that now, I can sympathize a little bit more with cancer patients and survivors. Another thing that I really enjoyed was the description of his actual Tour de France win as well as other races. He seems to remember them very vividly and I was sucked into the action. The book is also very good at informing the reader about the sport of cycling.(Traditions, rules, vocabulary, strategy, and many other aspects of cycling) I give it a rating of 3/3 and recommend it to everyone. The only downer is that he talks his wife up a lot throughout the book but ended up leaving her sometime after its publication.

Book Review: Shadow of the Giant

Shadow of the Giant is the final book in the Shadow Series by Orson Scott Card, although there is talk of another book being published in the future. I felt that it did a very good job of tying up the loose ends while continuing to hold my attention. New events kept unfolding throughout the entire book although I could see everything heading towards the finale. Like in all of his books, Card excellently relates the reader to the feelings and emotion of the characters, especially in the conclusion of this story. I've never cried while reading a book before, but this one probably brought me the closest. Not in a mushy or cheesy way though.

The story was very interesting as were all of the others in the series. While it is the final book in the series, the author left many things unfinished which I presume will be tied up in the forthcoming book Shadow in Flight. He left the hero's future as well as that of a newborn baby being raised by an enemy to the imagination of the reader for now at least. It's a very good read that sparks personal thought on government, war, and families. I give the book a 3 on a scale of 3.

Guessing Contest Prizes

I recently submitted a prediction of where I thought that my cousin, Bryan Gillespie, was going to get called to on his mission. I guessed Italy, and I was right. It wasn't the correct mission, but since nobody else guessed the correct mission either, I won by default with somebody else. Congratulations to Bryan, by the way.

Today as I returned from a long day in the salt mines, I checked the mail and there sat a large shoebox addressed to me. Promptly, I opened it and discovered that contained therein were a few prizes from the guessing game. Following, you will find a list detailing each item that I received:

1. A small Italian flag. Good old green, white, and red...Wasn't there a sub sandwich commercial about how those three colors make you hungry?....I don't remember what food chain it was though...

2. A box of Spaghetti. How did Aunt Yvonne know that Shanna and I were out of food? I'm still trying to figure that one out... And it was the good stuff too. It actually came in a box!! Wow!

3. A fork. Now, you may think, "A fork, huh? cool." But this is no ordinary fork. It's a spaghetti fork, which spins the spaghetti all up for me using an electric motor which is powered by two AAA batteries. So you all can see just how cool it actually is, here are a few videos of the fork in action...

Thank you Uncle Paul and Aunt Yvonne for the lovely prizes. And thank you Bryan, for getting called to Italy. That's awesome. I hope that you have a fun two years or so eating spaghetti with motorized forks. When you get home, you will be able to teach me a thing or two about how to correctly flip the switch in mid bite. (I had some trouble with the food falling off of the fork)

Random

JASON BRAAAAUUN!!!!

Book Review: Shadow Puppets

This book is the third in Orson Scott Card's Shadow Series which is a parallel series to the Ender's Game Series. The Shadow Series follows the events playing out on earth following the destruction of an alien civilization by a group of children trained up to be the greatest military minds alive. The main character of the series is Bean, a boy who's genes were illegally altered as an embryo resulting in unlimited brain growth. Along with this added brain power he also continues to grow physically.

This book continues the story of Bean after he has rescued other battle school graduates and friends from the evil influence of Achilles. However, with Achilles still in the world, Bean and his friend Petra are not safe. Shadow Puppets follows Bean and Petra as they try to find a way to get rid of Achilles, who has risen in power over China and many other nations. Many other battle school graduates also rise to the top of their home countries as tensions rise and war appears imminent. At the same time, Peter Wiggin, the Hegemon of the World and brother to the famous Ender Wiggin, seeks to use Achilles to accomplish his own purpose of uniting the world under a single governing body, the Hegemony.

Shadow Puppets definitely lived up to my expectations and kept my attention from start to finish. Although the pages were more commentary and dialog than actual action, you would think the story would be boring. The strategy discussed and story taking place, while being very detailed and deep, seemed so simple and easy to comprehend that I still felt very involved as a reader. I enjoyed reading pages on strategy and plans and then being filled in on how the plans worked with only a paragraph or a few sentences in the next chapter.

Bean is still as interesting as can be as he struggles to cope with his impending death and feelings for Petra. It is also interesting to see how Petra can manipulate him due to his admiration and love for her. Eventually this manipulation leads to one of the main story lines of the book.

One letdown was that I thought that Shadow Puppets was the last book in the series, when in fact it is the next to last book. As the story began to wind down, I realized that there were just too many loose ends to tie up in 30 pages or so. That kind of bummed me out. It's actually downright annoying when you expect something to finish and then it turns out that the story goes on. Kind of like when church is supposed to be over, but that one old guy in the ward is rambling on about something totally unrelated to the lesson and he just won't let up either because he doesn't know what time it is or he doesn't care what time it is. But you want to go home to catch the second half of the Suns game...

Overall, I highly recommend this book as well as the whole Ender and Bean series to anyone who enjoys reading but sometimes gets bogged down in the middle of a long book. The books are all about 300 pages and very easy reads. They are very entertaining. Anyone who enjoyed Ender's Game or Ender's Shadow will thoroughly enjoy this book as well.

Movie Review: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Okay, so I was able to see the new Indiana Jones movie this week and I thought I would write a review on it. I'll try not to spoil any of the plot for those of you who haven't seen it. No guarantees though, so read at your own risk. Don't get mad if I let something slip.

First of all, I would like to say that I really enjoyed the movie. It is chalk full of classic Indiana Jones scenes and one liners. Of course Harrison Ford is older in the movie, but there is still a good selection of fight/action scenes. The movie also tied into some of the past movies very simply and it was fun to find little parts in the screenplay that were taken from one of the previous three movies or to see an object or character from an old movie. Again Jones is pitted against one of the world's most feared armies, this time it's the KGB or Russian Army.

Of all the movies, as you would expect, this one implemented the most computer animated effects. I found this both enhancing and distracting. I felt like the explosions, special effects, etc. were all very good using the computer animation, but I also thought they went a little bit overboard with it animating badgers, monkeys, and even some stunts which looked fake and distracted from or had no purpose in the story. The ants is one exception though. I thought that the ant scene was great, aside from the one that got squished...

The Crystal Skull also seemed to have many scenes which were a bit too unrealistic. I know that it's Indiana Jones and he does unrealistic things in all of his movies, but usually there aren't so many things in one movie. I'm sorry, but I don't think that even Indiana could survive a nuclear bomb explosion by crawling into a refrigerator...Although I had expected him to maneuver out of a few sticky situations (which he did) I didn't expect him to have to escape this many times while each time it seemed to get stickier.

Finally, of all the ancient artifacts that Indiana Jones has found, this movie has to be the weirdest. Every previous movie finds Jones seeking after some relic with supposed and real supernatural powers. The ark, grail, and stones were great and all seem a lot less supernatural after watching this movie. The story for the movie was way out there. I immensely enjoyed the searching for the treasure and the good guy bad guy story. I didn't enjoy how the story ended. The ending is just weird. I can't think of any other way to explain it. Again the computer graphics add to the oddity of the final scenes. I wish that they could have figured out something else that the skulls could have done. I was glad to see the bad lady get her eyeballs burned out (eerily similar to the man turning old in The Last Crusade and the man melting in Raiders of the Lost Ark) but aside from that, it was just weird. Those of you who have seen it can identify with me, right?

So, in summary, I recommend the movie for any Indiana Jones fans. Like I said before, I enjoyed the movie and wouldn't be disappointed if I spent money to see it (even 8 bones for a normal theater). And while I felt that the ending was weird, it was a classic Indiana Jones story with good action sequences and great acting. Very funny. Very entertaining. But weird.
Did I mention that Shia LaBeouf was great in the movie?,...well he was.

Flossing Tips for the Kiddies

Ok all you kiddies...Here's an unsubstantiated fact that I heard at work this week. This one comes form my boss Lynn. Apparently, humans live 3 years longer on average if they floss their teeth daily. I guess this means that while I will live to a ripe age of 75, Shanna will last until she's 83. I could floss daily and increase my expectancy to 78, but is three years really worth all of the time put into flossing?...3 minutes daily for my life. If I floss every day of my life for 50 years from today that's like 54750 minutes, 912.5 hours, 38 days, devoted to just flossing my teeth. Maybe I'll just put in a few all nighters and get those 38 days out of the way early on so I don't have to worry about it anymore.
Now, I'm not saying this "flossing fact" isn't true, I'm just saying that I don't think I believe it...unless you can show me some proof. But for now, I'm still a weekly flosser.

Ding and Dang....

Recently, Shanna and I went camping near Goblin Valley State Park in the Utah desert. Goblin Valley itself was very impressive and interesting. I can't say that I've seen anything like it before. There are so many goblins, it's hard to believe that it was all formed naturally. And actually, in my thinking, it wasn't all nature. There had to be some divine artist behind this beautiful valley. Very neat. Aside from Goblin Valley though, we did a lot of hiking in some canyons in the area. This was my favorite part of the trip.

Despite staying overnight only Thursday night, we hiked 3 canyons: Crack Canyon and Ding and Dang Canyons. Ding and Dang form a loop that connects two larger washes and features extremely narrow portions as well as impressive vertical walls on both sides. Especially in Dang Canyon(the canyon we descended through), there were a few very high vertical drops which we had to navigate. One or two were a little bit creepy, but all of them were really fun and exciting to climb down.

Crack Canyon was also mucho fantastico. While the climbing and hiking wasn't as challenging as Ding and Dang, there were a lot of fun portions. The best part of the hike was the huge crack towards the end of the canyon. Very narrow, it rises the entire height of the canyon walls. I would guess that it was only about 3-4 feet wide. Once inside of it, we could shimmy up and down pretty much at will. About 15 feet up (I would guess, because I didn't go that high) the walls close in and get very narrow. The cool thing was that you could look straight up and see the sky outside.

At night, we camped in a wash which is generaly not a smart idea. Another camper decided to point out the obvious to us as he was passing. We thought "duh!" but since the sky was clear and chance of rain was nil, we took our chances. We had some delicious boiled hot dogs for dinner and breakfast burritos boiled in ziplock bags for breakfast. The rest of the trip we ate granola bars and my personal favorite, Finding Nemo fruit snacks.

All of the pictures from the trip are located on my brother in law's(Bruce's) picture album website at: http://picasaweb.google.com/bruckie There are four albums. Each begins with "San Rafael Swell" and were posted on April 24th or 25th. Enjoy glancing through them.

Ticket to Ride

If you haven't played the board game Ticket to Ride, you're missing out. I played it for the first time tonight and realized how fun it is. A game of railroad construction, Ticket to Ride pits you against the other players to build routes between specific destinations. With only certain rails available to build on, you must race the other players to place your colored railroad cars in those designated positions before somebody else does. While it's a game requiring planning, board awareness, and strategy it's play is actually very simple and easy to pick up on. A great game for small groups even if some haven't played before. Games will become intense with experienced players and will bring out the worst in everyone. You may often find yourself building in order to "block" someone's route and cause a detour rather than complete your routes. The game play seems similar to Settler's of Catan only much simpler and less time consuming. I'd buy it myself but Amazon.com has just confirmed my suspicion that the cost is over 30 dollars($35) and after all of those Settlers of Catan expansion packs, I don't have much(any) money left in my game budget...

College Tourney Day 1

Don't expect a daily update...

I'm glad to see that I did fairly well with my bracket choices on the first day of the NCAA Tournament. I managed to select each winner correctly, except for 1. I had to go with school pride and choose BYU over Texas A&M. You may not believe me, but I really thought in my mind that BYU would lose because they do every year...

Although I did fill out a bracket and checked it this morning, I'm not a huge March Madness fan. Of course it's cool to be able to watch over 60 basketball games in a few weeks, but as mentioned on abigjuicyvan.blogspot.com college players lack the skill to make the games truly exciting.

I think that I like March Madness for a different reason than anyone else. I like it because I can sit back and watch brick after brick and say, "I can do that. I do that all of the time." I feel like a great basketball player after watching shabby play for 2 hours.

Good rule of thumb. If you want to see good basketball (like I do) , watch the pros. If you want to feel good about yourself, join in on the madness....(with me).

Hey Everybody,

Here is a video that my lab group made last week. It's of a water balloon popping. We had to film at 12,000 frames per second to get this shot. It's pretty amazing how the balloon just gets pulled off from around the water. The water kind of sticks to the rubber too. It's just a cool video. Enjoy!

Bowling Class Champions

It was almost as exciting as winning the summer intramural soccer tournament. This past Thursday, February 21, my bowling team won the class championship. We should have been the outright champions without having today's match, but last time we played team 3, they used a little bit or trickery to foil us. They split their team up and bowled on two separate lanes in order to get more games in to pad their score with their highest 3 scores. Their plan worked and they squeaked out a victory in our first meeting. Not on Thursday, though.

Since we had lost one match earlier in the year, to team 3 as mentioned above, we were pitted against them again in the championship game. Their tactics were still the same and they split up and started to bowl. This time however, we made note of each game they bowled in order to ensure they took a proper average. They didn't have a stellar first or second game, but we did pretty well. We were well on our way to beating them handily when my teammate made a suggestion to me that would change the whole day. After noticing that I frequently start out games with three strikes, Bret Anderson told me to just think of a game as 3 frames long, and to bowl 4 games of 3 frames each. I thought this was funny and laughed, but I decided to try it out. So, at the start of the next game, I bowled a turkey (Strike, Strike, Strike). 3 frames down, time for a new game. I next bowled a spare followed by two strikes. Keeping with the suggestion, I started my third game (frames 7-9) with a strike!, then a Strike!, and a STRIKE!!! I couldn't keep in the mindset anymore. I had bowled 8 strikes in 9 frames with a spare in the other! I couldn't believe it! With each strike, my heart started beating faster and my hand got shakier. I tried to stay calm and the balls just kept gliding right into the pocket, sending the pins into a frenzy, taking no prisoners, and leaving none standing. But, like I said, my mind became weak. In the tenth frame, my hand just wouldn't throw the ball straight anymore. The ball glided to the right and took out 3 pins. Luckily, due to a fortuitous pin bounce, I picked up the spare and got to my bonus frame. I picked up a strike in the last frame to secure my score. Two hundred fifty-two! It was pretty sweet. That is the best score that I have ever bowled or will ever bowl in my entire life. I got a bunch of high-fives and jumped around a little bit (you know,...you've gotta do something when you bowl a 252...). I'm pretty excited to get my name on the wall of the bowling alley for a while too. I'll try to get a picture of it so that all of you out there believe my story.

What's even more better than that, is that the other team didn't have as good of a game as when we had first played them and team 3 was defeated. Team 2 became the victors and champions of the Beginning Bowling class. I know, it's a pretty big honor to be the best of the beginners. Props to my teammates (Scott Selin, aka. Straight Cash Homey and Bret Anderson, aka. Hank) who each outplayed all of the members of team 3 in our finals match. And thanks to them for giving me some of their good luck in that third game....I couldn't have done it without you guys. So, I guess that's that. We are the champions, and what do we get as our prize?... We get to bowl cosmic style next Tuesday in our last class. Sweet!

Evan (Bowling Name: Eban Sr.)