The Pursuit

Fervor on Facebook

2012-01-31T22:41:00.000-07:00

This is what I shared on Facebook, and got a understandably negative response due to the fact that is doesn’t have much in the way of the it-actually-happened department as is purported in the first sentence.

This happened on TAM airlines.

A 50-something year old white woman arrived at her seat and saw that the passenger next to her was a black man. Visibly furious, she called the air hostess.

"What's the problem, ma?" the hostess asked her
"Can't you see?" the lady said - "I was given a seat next to a black man. I can't seat here next to him. You have to change my seat"

- "Please, calm down, ma" - said the hostess
"Unfortunately, all the seats are occupied, but I'm still going to check if we have any."

The hostess left and returned some minutes later.

"Madam, as I told you, there isn't any empty seat in this class- economy class.
But I spoke to the captain and he confirmed that there isn't any empty seats in the economy class. We only have seats in the first class."

And before the woman said anything, the hostess continued

"Look, it is unusual for our company to allow a passenger from the economy class change to the first class.
However, given the circumstances, the commandant thinks that it would be a scandal to make a passenger travel sat next to an unpleasant person."

And turning to the black man, the hostess said:

"Which means, Sir, if you would be so nice to pack your handbag, we have reserved you a seat in the first class..."

And all the passengers nearby, who were shocked to see the scene started applauding, some standing on their feet."

"LIKE" AND "SHARE" IF YOU ARE AGAINST RACISM.

Even with its obvious flaw of being purported as the truth, I saw much merit in its argument. So I posted this in one of the comments following the initial hesitant negative response. Here is what I wrote:

“It is unfortunate that this story is purported to be the truth, and I would have liked it better if it wasn't a lie. Nevertheless, it does express a good point about racism and how this idea needs to fade into the history books.

The merit of the story is that it is short and simple and gets the point across, while giving those people who are racist a reason to pause and think about their biases. I also see some merit in the use of a white woman in her 50's as the antagonist in this story as well. To me she can be used as an ironic character.

Let's analyze the irony: She is part of a historically repressed portion of society that still has to fight inequality biases in the workplace (thankfully less that the recent history, but still not where it should be), and in many other societies around the world today. Her social history should have lent her to understand the fact that a person can't be judged by their race, gender, nationality or anything else. But alas she was the one who was short sighted.

I think the impact of the situation would have been lost if a white man was the one having a fit because he is seen in many lights as the historic repressor. ( I don't agree that this is an accurate portrayal of the demographic I fit into, but I see the social perception that is shared by many under educated people in the world and America today.) And if the situation was a white man being agitated by a black woman sitting next to him, then the point of the story would have been lost in the sexist and chauvinistic argument.

That is why I feel the casting of characters is well chosen to poke fun at the social norms.

Addressing the fact that it is a lie: I hate to admit this, but society has come to a place where idioms or analogies don't hold much sway, especially with the younger generations, of which I am a part. They want attention-getting facts and they have the attention span of a goldfish.(This is an overgeneralization to emphasize my point for anybody who reads this that may fit into that demographic or be offended my my own apparent stereotyping) They would be hard pressed read a treatise about the backwards, unfounded logic of racism, sexism, or any other social problem in my experience.

That is where I am left with a conflict of ethics. Do you vainly try to teach a population who wouldn't listen to a philosophical argument because they won't get off of Facebook or take out their ear buds long enough to get past the first paragraph of the argument? Do you berate them with strong words that they won't internalize because they classify you as just some zealous person who is distracting them from their Angry Birds?

As wrong as it sounds, I would support satirical stories, not purported to be the truth as this one does, that incorporate a witty story and some eye catching visuals in order to quickly emphasize a topic in society that needs to be changed, because it will get people's attention. Then maybe while they are playing Words with Friends or cruising Facebook, subconsciously they will begin to understand the shortcomings of the social views, and next time they are tempted to act like their parents or grandparents or friends when it comes to upholding erroneous stereotypes and prejudices, they will think twice and realize that the person that they are sitting next to is not a freak, carrying some disease because they are black, Asian, Muslim, Mormon, or anything else.

This is not the perfect solution, but I see it as a means that should be exploited to show the errant thoughts of society at large. We can see from the news that it is not just the younger generations that are holding onto false ideas about their brothers and sisters from different backgrounds. Society as a whole suffers from this, and I, by no means, am exempt from feelings of unfounded prejudice.

Shakespeare did it with acting, we do it with Facebook and Youtube.

That was really longwinded, but I couldn't let a great opportunity for change to be thrown under the bus, because of one story. I think that this is a great medium in order to exact change in today's lack-of-attention-span society, but I do agree that they shouldn't be portrayed as truth, unless of course it is the truth, and then in REALLY needs to be broadcast in order to remind everybody how far we still have to go.

And sadly, this was too long of an explanation to get anybodies attention. Most people stopped reading after the first sentence.”

Hopefully my argument wasn't too disjointed or full of errors. I tried to eliminate the grammatical ones.

Keep your hands and arms inside the plane at all times?

2011-10-16T19:07:00.003-06:00

I love my life. Love, love, love! I mean think about it. I spend hours writing papers about things that are semi interesting and/or OChem/Genetics homework. But before you think that I was being sarcastic in the last statement, you would be mostly mistaken. I don’t want to let you think that I am waking up every morning with eager anticipation, you would also be mistaken. It is intriguing and I understand it which is awesome, but there are other things that I wish I were doing. Like say. . . I dunno. . .skydiving? Well in fact that is exactly what I did instead of doing homework. (Lest the thought enter your mind that I shunted my academic responsibility, and jeopardized my future by willful disregard, I instead got 4 hours of sleep the preceding 4 days to free up my Saturday schedule.) And in case you were wondering if I liked it, the answer is an astounding YEAH! Scratch that off the bucket list!!( That is a 2 question mark worth statement, so none of this punctuation mark Nazi stuff.)And here is some photographic evidence to prove my point.

Now let’s go in chronological order. It makes more sense that way. Last time I checked you didn’t spontaneously end up 13,000 feet above Tooele, Utah with a man strapped to your back, with the hope that the bundle of fabric strapped to his back is in the shape of a parachute. So here it is:

Alli and I waiting to get suited up!

Walking to the plane

Just some adjustments. Wouldn't want some surprises at 7,000 feet

Mike and I before we got on the plane

The plane. It is a King Air 90 for those who care.

Our group

I might be slightly excited.

Mike leading me onto the plane by my harness. I don't exactly know what that was about. Maybe just making sure I was getting on the plane.

Having blast riding up to 13,000 feet

Tooele from the "door"

Getting ready to disobey the council we have received repeatedly from airline stewardesses.We weren't keeping our seat belts on and we were definitely moving about the cabin. Heck, we were exiting the cabin mid flight! .

Alli was not bellybuttoning very well.... Tsk tsk tsk

MY TURN!!

The artsy dramatic pic of the adventure

No turning back now!

FREEDOM!!

I'm freeeeeeee. Free faaaalllllinnnnnnn

Look at those cheeks flap in the breeze! That's a 150 MPH breeze to be exact.

Trying to do the peace sign is significantly harder than I thought it would be going 150 MPH

The moment of truth


Look ma! I'm running through the air!

Opening a little faster would be preferable...

Here I come!

Please buckle your seat belt, but away any carrry-on items you may have taken out during the flight, and please put your seat back. . . . Oh wait.

Steady. . . steady. . .

Touchdown! Safely back on mother earth. . . But where is the fun in that!?

That volume is all natural.

So in case I didn’t make it explicitly clear earlier, I would do it again. And probably again and again and again. I think next April sounds good.

Oh, and I'm pretty sure I re-ruptured my eardrum. Oh well.

Life's little pushes to reflection

2011-10-09T02:44:00.000-06:00

Life is far too short sometimes. I have never really been affected by death. All the times I have known people who have died, it was very evident that their time was coming. Even this summer when I worked in the ER and I was doing chest compressions on people as they were pronounced dead, I wasn’t bothered too much. That was because every time they were old and had lived a long life and things were going downhill for them and this was the end. I think the light of the gospel made that easier. But today I was shaken for the first time in a long, long time.

I found out that a girl whose ward I served in while in San Antonio died Thursday night. That by itself is not shocking, but the fact that she was a perfectly healthy 23 year old medical student who died while studying gave me pause. She is younger than me, doing what I want to be doing here in a few years. I think it just hit too close to home. The strange part is that I don’t really know this girl super well. We talked a few times when I was at dinner at her parent’s house, and I would consider her parents some of the greatest people I knew while there. So there is some connection, but not tons. I think I am just deeply sorry for her family and all that they are feeling right now. I couldn’t imagine. I wouldn’t want to imagine.

But one thing it has made me realize is that if I want to achieve my dreams and do what I want with my life, I had better not waste my time frittering it away on pointless endeavors. Who knows how long each person has, and it is up to each person to make the most of that time. Thinking about this has made me want to work harder in school and my relationships. I want to me excellent because the only thing you leave behind is the impression that you made on others through the life you lived. Life is hard, but there is no reason to make it harder by living a mediocre life and skirting your potential.

It never ceases to amaze me, the things in life that are the impetuous to change and reflection.

“Press on, Nothing in the world will take the place of persistence. Talent will not, nothing is more common that unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not. Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not. The world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. “
-Anonymous

Havasupai

2011-09-11T22:54:00.000-06:00

So Havasupai… Basically it was fantastic.

Oh, you want to know more do you? Well aren’t you demanding.

Fine. I abdicate to your desires only because I have some sweet stories to tell. So listen up. I expect no sleeping while this lecture is going on.

So it all began on a clear sunny Friday morning in blissful double bubble Provo, Utah. I was busy running aroung buying all the things that I needed for the epic camping trip that was Havasupai. Birds were singing, couples were gazing into each other’s eyes with lovesick passion, and I was giving a sideways upturned eyebrow as I hurried past. I wondered if the birds had been drinking too much local water with all the Prozac that seems to be in the area ( with Utah being the highest rate of anti-depressants in the country and all), and if those lovesick peeps had blinked yet or if they were under the imperious curse or something of the like. Either way, I had limited time to get everything done and I was not to be distracted by the frivolity that was filling the air like some putrid cloud.

Ok I may have taken a slight literary license with that last paragraph… back to the story.

Basically I was rushed. I eventually got all my dinners in line. My bags were packed, my shoes tied tight. I was determined not to get in a fight, and with that I headed off to Men’s Chorus. It was the first day of Men’s Chorus for the semester and I knew that I could have skipped it and been fine, other than the impending wrath of a one, Sister Hall. I knew that she was a force to be reckoned with; so I abdicated my desires to leave at a reasonable hour for the journey that Google Maps said would take 12 hours. (I had my suspicions of the accuracy of the computational devices math skills). I wanted to get some sleep before I hiked 10 miles, but alas, Men’s Chorus was at 4pm which meant the very earliest that I could leave would be 5:10, and I knew that would not happen. Let’s be realistic here. College students arranging things and it actually happening right on schedule. That would be pretentious to say the least.

After the rite of the first day of Men’s Chorus, I hurried to my apartment to pick up my passengers, Bible Jon and Bushman. Bible had forgotten his lembas bread (think Lord of the Rings style), so we went back to his apartment and got that. So we left P-Town at around 5:45 and started the 12 hour journey. Well I would have nothing to do with 12 hours. 598 miles in 12 hours? Who do they think I am? Gramps driving my ’78 Impala with a “Drive 55” bumper sticker on the back? No. No, I am not. I have a… let’s say… a determined driving style. My right foot is determined to be as close to the carpet as possible at every possible occasion, if you catch my drift. Well needless to say Molly (my 2000 Subaru Forester) also shares my determined driving style and we may or may not have been going 100+ MPH on various occasions as I whispered sweet nothings to the beautiful Hyundai Accent that mistook the lush central Utah countryside for the rolling hill of England. (That last statement was ripe with sarcasm in case you missed it.)

Needless to say the “12 hour trip” took 8 hours and 45 minutes with stops for gas and an hour long stop for dinner.

Other than the psycho people of Vegas the trip was uneventful. But the people in Vegas in on a Friday night leave much to be desired. Like not being inebriated by various substances while driving, or walking, or running a business for that matter. Any gas station in Vegas at midnight is not the most ideal place to be, FYI.

Well we got to the parking lot at the top of the trail head at about 2:30 and couldn’t find the other people in our group who had left hours before us and said that they would be camping at the parking lot as well. So we slept by my car with a bajillion other people doing the same thing, in hopes that when our group went to leave at around 4 or 5 they would see us, stop, and we’d all leave as a group, as planned. (Well, you can see how well we have been sticking to plans up to this point, if that is any indication of what this next little bit of print has to hold.) At around 5:30, Bible wakes me up and says he thinks he heard some people say his name, but there was nobody around. So he and I got up and started looking for our group. There wasn’t a soul to be found. We talked to this lady at the trail head and she said a huge group of college kids had just left. Mind you, our group has 35 people in it. So Bible and I rushed back, woke Bushman from his peaceful slumber (NOT akin to what I had experienced in the 3-5:30 hours after driving the whole way), and bolted down the trail head at about 6 AM.

Well bolted might allure your mind to imagine some heroic sprint through the wilderness like Moses and the children of Israel escaping the captivity of Egypt. That would be a mistake to lead you to think that. It was dark, I was still half asleep, and the switchbacks were steep and fraught with boulders, so it was more akin to a fast jaunt. But anyways, we headed off into the wilderness quickly. Whatever. Potato, Patatoe. It’s not important.

So on our quick jaunt we were met with some BEAUTIFUL scenery. Sunrise in the grand canyon was fantastic. I recommend it. Here are some pictures to gaze it.

Looks man made

It was so intriguing to see the geology of the canyons, and wonder what exactly caused it to look like it does.

Well after 6.5 miles we reached the village of Supai and paid our camping fees and such. It is such an interesting little village, because as far as I can tell there are no roads that lead into it, which makes me wonder how on earth they built all the houses and such that are there. It was cool to be able to walk through this village at around 8 in the morning. The sun was just peeking over the canyons and the roosters were crowing and it was just fantastic. Then some demon cow decided to go all satanic and start bellowing some freaky string of noises, and the horse in the pasture next to him decided he would sing a beautiful aria, but he had the vocal capabilities of an American Idol reject from the nationwide tryouts. Needless to say it wasn’t like the movies.

Oh and we still hadn’t found our group. We found a few people from our group but not 35 people.We were beginning to wonder if we had been led astray a wee bit and if our exasperated flight through the desert wasn’t completely warranted.

After the village we only had about 2.5 miles to go, so we hurried off in hopes of catching our group, or whatever the lady at the trail head said sounded like our group. We had some SERIOUS doubts by this point in time as I have so recently mentioned.

On the way there we heard the first sounds of falling water and it turned out to be Navajo Falls, or New Navajo Falls, or Rodeo falls or whatever it is named. There is some ambiguity about its name because it was changed significantly after a big flood in 2008. Whatever its name, it was falling water and we knew we were close to the campsite.

I didn't take this picture. Some random guy from Germany did. Thank you Google Image search.

Just a bit later we heard more falling water and it was THIS!:

Bushman. Bible. Me.

I didn't take this picture either. Gatorade did.

Havasu Falls. This picture doesn’t even do it justice. The river bed is white because of some awesome chemical reaction between the high copper content in the water composition of the sand, and the water looked like Arctic Frost Gatorade. It was awesome.

Eventually we got to the campground and found out that we had left far before the rest of our group and this “huge” group of college students actually turned out to be comprised of 8 people. I didn’t care by this point because that just meant that I had more time to look at the beauty that surrounded me, or find a bathroom or little boys bush or something, immediately. Whatever, it’s not important. But I can say by firsthand experience that they have really nice outhouses there, in case you were wondering.

Well eventually everybody else arrived , oh, 3 hours later. By that time those of us who are more inclined to speed and punctuality, were already frolicking in the Gatorade water at Mooney falls. I didn’t take my camera on this part of the excursion because I knew I was going to be throwing all caution to the wind and acting with reckless abandon, and the last time I checked electronics weren’t very fond of water. Maybe Gatorade colored water is different, but I wasn’t going to find out. So you’ll have to rely on other peoples pictures. Like this one for instance:

Again, not my pic. Thank Google again. And some random guy from Missouri with a much nicer camera than I.

To get to Mooney falls you have to traverse this cave/ trail that winds down the canyon face with chains and ladders in strategic places to aid in your decent. It is pretty awesome.

Thank you guy from Missouri, again.

Well the next 2 days consisted of me basically being in a swimsuit 24 hours a day. I was in heaven. There were natural “water slides” and water falls and rock skipping galore. If these "water slides" were part of a charging, man-made establishment, it would be out of business because of misrepresentation and lawsuits for injuries. It was more like a swifter moving lazy river with sharp turns and large rock you couldn’t see and thus you would injure yourself on. I may or may not have personal experience in this matter. But because it was natural, who was I going to curse or sue. God? Last time I checked in Genesis that ended badly for all who tried it. So I just had fun and chalked up the injuries to camping.

Later that night I was coerced into going cliff jumping. I was literally picked up and carried (2 feet). They had to try had really hard because I absolutely, resolutely, hate cliff jumping. Hate, hate, hate. So because I hate it so much I jumped off the ambiguous named falls 7 times.(see picture above) It was about a 35 foot drop. (Don’t worry the next time I tell this story it will invariably be higher) It was so awesome, but on the 6^th jump I came up out of the water and I couldn’t really hear very well. I pretty much guessed that I had ruptured at least 1 of my eardrums on a jump where I landed flat footed. Random I know, but those are my ears. What can I say?( SIDE NOTE: verdict from the urgent care doctor: I perforated my right eardrum and maybe my left one as well. ENT appointment scheduled for Wednesday the 14th.)

So I jumped one more time for good measure. Then went back to camp. And slept.

The next morning we had sacrament meeting in the canyon with our group and then we went and hiked down to Beaver Falls. It was about a 4 mile hike through the canyons and the river.

It was awesome except for the fact the my Chacos hate me. Last year they tore my feet to pieces and this year was more of the same. I am buying some Vibrams next year. But other than then sadistic sandals, it was stunning. There were more waterfalls to jump off of and things to explore. It was basically fantastic. We hiked back and I promptly fell asleep and took me a little nap. Oh how wonderful naps are. I should take more of those.

After dinner Sunday night we packed up our stuff and began the 10 mile hike out at about 8PM. Well my determined driving style also comes with the optional extra determined hiking style. So needless to say it only took 4 and a half hours to get out instead of the 3 that it took to hike in. Mind you it is all uphill and the switchbacks which were the first thing on the way down, are now the last thing on the way out. Funny how that works. It was terrible. I have never wanted to be done hiking so bad! My legs were burning, but then I saw that parking lot . . . I don’t think I have ever been that happy to see flat pavement in my whole life. I plopped myself down and relished in the finale of it all. Then I started taking pictures as the rest of our group made it to the top over the next hour and a half.

Just getting to the top

We were so happy to be done

Later people

The psycho people in the group then got in their cars and started the 8-10 hour drive back to Provo. I am not one of those people. I may be off my rocker most of the time, but I am not psycho. I pulled out my sleeping bag and mat and went to bed with the other sane people.

Well in the canyon I could get away with a fleece sleeping bag and be perfectly comfortable. This is not the case at the lip of the canyon. It is windy up there. So in my dazed, freezing sleep, I began the frantic dismantling of my pack pulling out everything that could possibly aid in keeping me warm. This included: my towel, followed by my extra blanket, then my jacket, and finally a tarp. I got a little bit of shuteye after that and awoke at the crack of dawn. I immediately started packing up my stuff and headed off to use the luxurious bathrooms, if you call poorly maintained Honeybuckets luxurious. While I was enjoying the accommodations, I heard a scream from my group and I wondered what in tarnation was going on. So when I was finished I went over to discover that I had had a visitor sleeping right next to my head under the tarp that my friend was sleeping on.

Isn’t he cute.

Well after that we headed out and I determine-idly drove home. This time it took a little over 9 hours. I guess my determination waned a wee bit. I’ll work on that next time.

It was a fantastic trip and I highly recommend it to everybody. You NEED to go. And I didn’t get poison oak *fingers crossed* this year so that is a good thing. But I did rupture my eardrums so . . . I guess it is my plight to harm myself while camping. But don’t think that is going to stop me from camping or anything of the like. Because if you thought that, you would be wrong.

My next goal is skydiving.

Long Awaited Updates

2011-07-17T17:18:00.000-06:00

I seem to have long periods of time where there is nothing on this blog, and then I vomit 6-8 months worth of stuff all at once. You have been warned, and I am sorry for the impending literary disaster, but I have been busy.

Things will be discussed in the following order. If you don't care for a particular topic, by all means skip it. But don't come to me in a huff when you say I didn't tell you because it is probably on here. Or I forgot completely to tell you, and then you can join pretty much everybody else because I am really bad at disseminating information that other people deem is important. There will be many examples of this is the following text.

The order is:
My work(s), Yes that is plural
My free time (ha ha ha, I wish)
My love life ( Don't just skip the first two and go straight for this one. I do other cool stuff sometimes!)

My work(s)

Well first of all I am a Student Health Intern at Kootenai Medical Center here in Coeur d'Alene. Basically I act as a CNA (Certified Nurses Assistant), but I lack any sort of certification. You might be thinking," I don't him in on my care. I'll most certainly die!" Well quite your hysterical fears, I don't do anything that important. The bulk of my day is spent wheeling people around in stretchers and wheelchairs, and putting blood pressure cuffs on them and hitting start on the machine and then putting the numbers that pop up on the screen into the computer. Not the most taxing job mentally. But I do get to see some pretty cool stuff. And let's be serious, the only thing that a certificate would get me is the opportunity to do enemas, and is that really a bad thing? I didn't think so. I will blissfully remain uncertified.

The best part of the internship is that I get to be pulled into every cool procedure that happens in the ER (IE resetting broken bones, suturing people(stitches), looking at gaping wounds, and taking care of ambulances when they come in. But I do have to say that there are tons of people that do not know what an emergency is. Having a cold does not entitle you to call the ambulance FYI. Also I get to follow cases to the OR. So far I've seen a broken femur repaired, a hip being replaced, an appendix being taken out, and stents being put into a guys heart as he was having a huge heart attack. Pretty cool stuff if you ask me.

I think I really like Orthopedics. I mean who wouldn't like playing with power tools and drills and stuff like that!?

I also still work at the Hayden Lake Country Club. Not much has changed there. Although they did repaint some walls and get new chairs. That is nice. The people are still the same. Lots are nice, some are indifferent and some are so stuck up you begin to wonder if their nose of permanently stuck skyward or if they're golf club got shoved.... ANYWAYS... I digress. I really do like working there because the people I work with are awesome and we have many laughs about the inept/over analyzing/hell bent/clueless mannerisms that come out in a few of the people with lots o money. This is no more evident that with some of the brides at the weddings we host. "Hello Bride-Zilla!" fits perfectly for a few of the brides that I have worked with over the last few years. I always know that at work I will see something that is just hilarious because either you are puzzled at the thought process of somebody, or the analties some people have. But you quickly learn to just put a smile on your face and do whatever they want. But I do have to say that most of the time the people are pleasant enough to deal with, although sometimes I wonder if some of the people even notice that their is an entire staff working there, or if they think it is Hogwarts and everything happens magically.... I guess I'll never know the answer to that.

Also I do yard work on the side for 3 people every week. On the side you say? Why yes, I manage to squeeze it in between my other 2 full time jobs. Gotta make money somehow! The people that I work for are all awesome. They are members of the country club, but they are described by the previous paragraph. They are some of the nicest people I know. I basically pull weeds, plant stuff, trim things, spray stuff, paint things, hang things, fix ponds, get hot tubs working, program garage remotes, turn on water heaters, fix cable tv boxes, hook up Wiis, mow lawns, blow off driveways, and just about anything else they want. I did get to drive a Porsche Cayenne that one of the people owns, and now I am hoping that one of the other ones will notice my ogling eyes staring at his 2002 Porsche Carerra. One can dream right? It's worked in the past...

So that is my working life. I average about 60-70 hours a week, which makes this next category very short.

My Free time( right)

Well it is not filled with running or working out that is for sure. I wish it was, but alas it is not. Instead I have seen some sweet movies this summer, but basically it consists of Erin ( more on her later), Sherre and Naomie and their family. There has been much card playing and Top Gear Watching. And that is about it. I did get sunburned once. That was fun. But that is about it because I haven't been out in the sun since. Oh well. I shall be pasty white except for my farmers tan forever....

My Love Life

Oh look, you didn't even have to wait long for this one. Well her name is Erin and I have known her for almost 3 years. It just took me a while to see that she was there, if you know what I mean. And then I was scared, I'll admit it. And then I went from scared to over analyzing, back to scared and then straight on to confused and overworked/tired. It was at that point I threw all caution to the wind and grabbed her hand. We shall see where this goes from here. This is a fairly new development, IE 2 weeks, so I don't have all the answers to all the questions that you have. And remember, I am a guy so we never have the answers. That is just the way things are.

I suppose that you want some more details on Erin. Just a hunch. She is a Pharmacy Tech, has a big person job ( stable reliable income in her chosen career (career... that just makes her seem all fancy and smart... you won't hear me complain.)), and is totally awesome. That last one is why I am dating her. Now if you want long strings of descriptor type words to describe her every detail, well then you are looking at the wrong person. Better yet, go to Facebook click on the highlighted name that comes after "Jeff Shirts is in a relationship with...." and do some genuine Facebook stalking. That's why it was invented! And it would be much easier than me trying and failing to employing literary prowess.

So there ya go. That is my life. Work, Sleep, and hang out with Erin. It is thrilling. I know. I'm living it :)

Karla England

2011-04-17T01:17:00.000-06:00

Karla England is one of the kindest people that I know, and quite possibly the kindest person that has lived on this earth. I first met her when ward choir was at her house, or was it when she and her husband Tim were my Sunday School teachers? I don’t know what came first, but I cherish the fact that I was able to know her and feel of her love for everyone. She had a way of expressing her testimony that made a deep impression on me, and I will never be able to thank her enough for that. She may have gotten a little irritated with the rowdy crowd of teenagers that she was tasked with teaching, but the love that she had for each person was undeniable. Especially when she would make treats.

Oh the treats. They were a mix of heaven and the Sugar Plum Fairy in every bite. And those crème puffs… Oh the crème puffs. I had never had a crème puff until one glorious day after ward choir when she had made them for the refreshment. They were just so perfect and delicious. I know for sure that words cannot describe the taste and perfection that was in each of those little puffs of love. So I won’t even try. Use your imagination, and then think of the greatest thing that you can’t think of because it is so great, and then you’re close. I might be exaggerating a tiny bit, but you get the idea.

When I first heard that Karla was sick, I knew that she would fight till the bitter end. She was not a person that was easily swayed, and when she set her mind to fighting cancer, she gave it all she had. And the fact that she did it with a smile on her face was amazing. I was not with her every day, but her indomitable spirit was present every time that I would see her. She had a quiet, determined way of showing her zeal for life, and it was contagious. I always wanted to be a better person after just a few minutes of talking to her. Her smile could light up a room regardless of what she was feeling inside, and that to me is something that I will always remember and cherish.

While I was serving my mission in San Antonio, I prayed for two people every day: Karla and Karsten. They were my examples persistence and believing in miracles. It seemed that whenever things got tough, those two pulled some miracle out of their sleeve and kept on going with the same unconquerable spirit. They were one of my reasons to keep going and share the message of Jesus Christ which carried with it the restored priesthood of Jesus Christ and all the powers that were connected with it, including the power to work miracles. And if there were ever two perfect examples of modern day miracles, they were Karla and Karsten. If they could fight with faith, then I could most certainly serve a mission with honor.

Karla was an inspiration to me to never give up on my dreams, and to do all that I could to be the best person that I could be. She will be sorely missed, but her legacy will live on with those who had the privilege of knowing her.


Karla and I the Halloween before I left on my mission, October 2006

Rhubarb sprouts couple: Zoroastrians rejoice

2010-10-10T19:21:00.000-06:00

This week has been a busy one for sure! But what else can I expect being a college student. I think it is the only thing that somebody would pay a lot of money for, so that somebody else could stress the customer out. But I guess it will be worth it in the end… right??

Well other than the stress, things have been good. I took a few tests and did better than I thought I would on one. So that was a good thing. But then the lack of sleep that studying and working causes the aforementioned college student, caught up to me and now I have a cold. But to my body’s defense, I did just get over poison oak ( miracle I know! Just a few sores left but other than that it is all better) and it was obviously so used to fighting off invaders that it was bored and wanted a challenge again. So it chose to let down its defenses just long enough for the invading army of rapidly multiplying bacteria could set up shop in my sinual region, and then SURPRISE!! T-cells to the rescue! My body is kinda dramatic. When I was born it didn’t want to be like the other kids, so it decided that a mal functioning immune system was the way to get attention. Then it was a rebellious teenager and decided to experiment with lactose intolerance. Then my quadriceps muscle wanted to know what it would be like to be free of anything tying it down, and convinced my patellar tendon to join it. Sadly my shin bone paid the price, but don’t worry a sterilized bolt and washer brought the whole family back together again. And now recently it got bored and decided to just over react to everything, ie: poison oak, laundry soap, and the like. And now it has a flair for the battle field. I don’t even know what to think these days. Maybe I should think about physics, or my chronic diseases class. On second thought, not the chronic diseases class. I might give it some ideas that I don’t want to deal with. Physics will have to do for now.

But other than the drama queen body, life is pretty good.

I went on a date.

(breath in……….. breath out………… repeat. SLOWLY)

Now that you have managed to pick yourself up off the floor after fainting, I realize that I should probably work up to that point a little more slowly. I’ll remember that next time.

But truthfully life is good. I am trying to find a name for my car. It just hasn’t come to me. Molly is in the running, but we’ll have to see if it sticks. Any suggestions are welcome, but no boy names. I refuse to drive a boy.

And for being 23. It’s just like being 22. Big surprise I know. If you fell off your chair after that statement, then I can guess that you are 10 and that every birthday means a lot and great thing happen when you are a year older. Well in that regard, birthdays are kinda like Santa. SUPER important when you are a kid, not so much when you are older.

Crap.

If there were any 5 year olds reading that, parents please go find them. They may need resuscitation/ calming words of stretched truths. IE: Santa is real and that bad man on the computer was just angry or deranged. Something along those lines will do.

Well that is about it for the week. No marathon blog posts but do be warned, then next installment will be completely different from all previous. I will attempt a sober, focused, serious blog post.

Now you have to keep checking back huh!

ANSWERS!!

2010-09-26T01:06:00.000-06:00

Well things are getting better?? Well they really are. I was talking to the kid who was in my group who also got Poison Oak and had to suffer with Prednisone too. He also still has random patches of itchiness all over and they keep popping up. He went to his rheumatologist again after things weren't getting better and the rheumatologist said that it was not poison oak. At first he was like " What to do you mean it's not! What is it!" I was thinking the same things when he was telling me this story. My mind immediately went to all the things that could be worse that what I already have. Cartesian slugs, Andorian Shingles and the like ya know. Well the Doc said the rash was because his body was now super sensitive to EVERYTHING now. His body had ramped itself up to fight off the poison oak, rightfully so, and now it was still on high alert. So everything with perfumes and dyes made it freak out again. So the Doc told him to stop using laundry detergent with perfumes and dyes and to use Dove soap. So guess what I went out and bought today! I sure hope that this makes a difference because I am about ready to go crazy. I have already lost my mind, so that would be the next logical step. So that is where we stand with the rash, but the feet.... Well that is another story all together.

They are healing at a snails pace. That is too be expected because the Prednisone stops your body from reacting to anything, which is a good thing. Side effects not so much, but not reacting is a good thing. I think. Still weighing that trade offs in my head. Going loony over being itchy, or loony because of drugs.... If we are going for comical, then I would go for the drugs because that was truly a hysterical experience. :) So because my body stopped reacting to anything, it decided that open festering wounds were not high on its priority list. Yeah, I must have lost my mind completely. Consciously AND subconsciously. But finally things are starting to look better. That also could be because I have about 15 Band-Aids on my feet at any one time... BUT....

I do have to say that I am learning so much stuff about my self through this. I have gotten to know my Heavenly Father so much more because late at night when things were so bad that I couldn't sleep, he was the only one to talk to and the only one who could help. I have learned to take things in stride and because of that, learn to look at the good side of things. Life is so much better when you look at the bright side. It doesn't make sense to look at the depressing side of things in life. Where does that get ya?. I mean I might as well take a beautiful car like the one at the top of the blog (2008 Aston Martin DBS in case you didn't know :)) and cram your ocular implementations up the tail pipe and say that the car is a bit dirty and dark. DO YOU NOT SEE THE CURVES AND LINES OF THIS CAR!! I would kill to be run over by that beauty. I would be so happy all the way to the spirit world ... but I digress.

School has been good this semester and working as a TA has been a great experience. It is weird sometimes when students are older than you, but yet you have such power and respect from them. It is weird for me. I don't exactly know what to think most days. Chem 105 seems straight forward and understandable to me now that I have the answer book in front of me and all the memories of the stuff that I have crammed in my head. I have to take time to remember that Chem 105 was the bane of my existence at one point in time. I distinctly remember when I was in my recitation hour with the TA and being so lost that I just wanted to crawl in a hole and get away from all the stuff that had anything to do with Chem. I have see that face MANY times so far this semester. Oh the struggles of introductory Chem. I'm just happy that I have the answer book at my disposal. :)

Also I am loving my Major! I finally decided to declare a major after 2 years of college. Good idea ya think? Well it is Public Health. I know what y'all are thinking. " I thought that you wanted to go to Medical School." I still do. And think about it. What would be better for a physician to know about than the methods of prevention and health on a community level? I am loving the classes, especially my Chronic Diseases class. It is awesome! Who knew pictures of metastasizing stomach cancer and cysts would be so intriguing. Not me, but now I get distracted by the other sections in my book, rather than the news or the weave of the carpet... or the useless videos on YouTube. Well if you are wondering what the heck public health is, you are not alone. Go here to find out.

Well till next time!

The progress

2010-09-20T21:44:00.000-06:00

Well things are getting better finally. The blisters are going down and things are slowly not itching. And I can gladly report that I don't have to take Prednisone anymore!! Yay! I get to not have mood swings and random hunger pains, even though I STUFFED and just at a dead Yak. Hard to find those in Provo, I know. I had to find one I was so hungry. It was the weirdest experience that I think that I have ever had. I now know KINDA (in bold letters to emphasize the point that is is not a cemented or complete knowledge. I don't want backlash from the females of the world over this next statement.) what it feels like to be a girl / pregnant.
DON'T HURT ME!
I don't want all that, " You'll never know what it feels like!" and " You only wish you had to go through this so that you could get sympathy" stuff from the females of the world. I was just trying to relate to you. Sorry I tried.
But continuing on with the story... So I felt like I was Pregnant( yeah yeah I know) sans alien growing inside of me. Doing drugs now has even less appeal to me than it ever has, which was next to zero in case any of y'all were thinking that I was some closet junkie. It was horrible but also kinda funny, because I could look at it from the weird third person angle and I would crack my self up. "I could distinctly remember being happy just a few minutes ago, and now I'm mad. Weird..." I just want to thank my dear mother and sister who listened to me go on about WHO KNOWS WHAT. I would sometimes get off the phone and wonder why on earth I called and what I was doing. I hope it was enjoyable for you.

But the best part of this was the fact that for some completely unknown reason my feet began to swell up. I don't know why but it definitely reached it's climax on saturday. I was grading paper for my Chem 105 class and my mom called to see how I was doing. I had been so into these thrilling assignments that I was completely ignoring my feet. How might I be able to do that? Like I said before. Drugs. And sheer annoyance and apathy helped too. But she called and I looked at my feet and the first thing that popped into my head was LITTLE SMOKIES!! All I needed was some BBQ sauce and a football game to watch and my toes would have been eaten. I couldn't even pry them apart. I know that is sick, but it gets better. They were oozing! They were so swollen that the blisters had popped and were slowly leaking and the fluid that was in my feet out into the outside world. I am so glad that I was the only person that was in the TA lab saturday morning.
So for the rest of the afternoon I had my feet propped up in all their glory:

There would have been have been some looks from anybody that walked in, but instead I was left to my own privacy. Good thing for them. I mean look at those little piggies! They're all bundled up for winter if you ask me! They aren't in blankets they are in high altitude parkas. So then I went to walk to the Library and my sandals wouldn't fit... So I walked across campus in my bare feet, then crammed my feet unsuccessfully in to my now 3 sizes to small sandals and traipsed through the library to do an assignment. I then promptly left the library and walked barefoot back to my apartment. It is really sad when barefeet on hot pavement feels better than wearing shoes. But it was probably during one of those happy Prednisone induced moments.

I then spent the rest of the night with my feet propped up.

Then sunday I put my shoes on at 10 AM and didn't / couldn't get them off till about 10PM. I lost feeling in my Lil' Smokies halfway through Sunday School at around 3. But that was ok, less pain right? Come this morning my feet were actually feeling better. Now it was just sharp pains on the front part of the foot. Quite an improvement if you ask me. And now that it is 10 o'clock at night, they are almost the size that they are supposed to be and not hurting! MIRACLE!! So it looks like things are going to improve and I am happy about that for sure!

So top tip for life. Don't get poison oak. And if you don't heed that council, then just call me and I will tell you in blunt terms that your life is going to suck for about 2 weeks. I know, I'm a great friend and motivator.

But other than that, things are just so exciting around here. Lots of school and work and all that stuff. And of course the first sunday-that-everybody-is-in-the-ward chastity/ dating lesson from the bishop. Gotta love BYU. And who says that BYU's main purpose isn't getting everybody married off as soon as possible? Have you been to a BYU ward in the last 20 years?

Well there are my ramblings...

Things are getting better?

2010-09-16T09:59:00.000-06:00

Well things are getting better....slowly. My legs don't itch as much as they used to and they aren't as red and disfigured, which is a good thing. Although I am not getting as many crazy looks from people as they walk by. I have gotten so crazy looks and even some yelps from some people as they cruise past me. I still don't know why people walk looking at the ground. For starters there are cooler things to see looking up.Unless you really like the grooves in the pavement or the bugs. But then you are just weird. And if you do look down when you walk all the time, then you might happen to see some unsightly things, like my feet per se. Usually that would be a dream of most people, to gaze at my luscious phalanges, but not at the moment! Ok so maybe that last statement was a bit of a stretch... Well you get my point. If people are going to be staring at the ground averting all eye contact then they are going to see some unpleasant things, which then makes my day just that much more enjoyable, because the looks on the faces of some people is absolutely PRICELESS!! The looks of disgust, fear, and all out confusion have brightened my day.

So I guess that good things can come from this little experience. And one other thing that I thought of was that the Prednisone that I am taking is an anti inflammatory which is obviously keeping my Iritis in check. So look at that. Killing to birds with one stone. And who said that poison oak wasn't a blessing! But one thing that is not so fun are the side effects to Prednisone. There are the usual things like nausea, loss of appetite and nsomnia (not a problem here!). But then there are some interesting ones: elevated sense of self-worth ( how exactly do you quantify that again??), excitedness( check), mood swings (CHECK!), and a few others. So tow days ago I couldn't stop talking about anything! I hope I didn't either divulge to much information or come across as slightly over excited, but today... I was fine when I woke up but them at about 2 and a half hours later at 8 I was suddenly SUPER depressed and then just zoning out and then back to depressed and then totally fine. It was the trippiest roller coaster ever! I don't think I would pay to go on that more than once.

This little run in with poison oak has turned out to be quite a learning experience. Here are just a few.
Poison Oak- bad, people do stare at the ground ALOT when they walk, Itching can take over all other brain function, grease lightening can be used as just a detergent for your clothes. People may look at you weird but it is possible. Drugs are amazing. Patience is a good thing to have. God does care about you, but that does not mean that he will take away trials. Some girls are slightly turned on and intrigued by swollen deformed feet. I don't know if that is a good thing or not. It is possible to survive on 3 hours of bad sleep. Itching does nothing other than make you more misrable. The internet is full of people who will tell you to do everything from smack your blisters/ rash to make it stop itching to soak in oatmeal, (Why not throw some brown sugar in there and make it a meal?), to trying to sell you any number of products that will supposedly cure the issue for 3 easy payments of $19.95. And also that it may take anywhere from 1-8 weeks to cure the rash. 8 Weeks! Why not just tell the person to amputate the affected areas. That almost would be more bearable! Oh the joys.

Top Tip for the day:
Don't get poison oak!

Poison Oak Pictures : the Update

2010-09-13T14:33:00.000-06:00

Well things are looking up. I went to the doc this morning and he was like "wow that is worse." It is never a good thing when a doctor says something like that. But hey, I knew it would be coming. Well I am now on some oral steroids that are supposed to stop the inflammation and itching, and so far, 5 hours after the first dose, it seems to be working! HAZZAH!! Well Here are some pictures so that you can enjoy the pain as much as I do. :)

Well there ya go. And just imagine a huge patch of that on my derriere. :/ I didn't think that y'all would appreciate a picture of that though.

Love y'all!

Death Hollows (sounds scary huh. Well it is)

2010-09-12T20:51:00.000-06:00

Ok so this blog post is so long over due, and long in length,but there has been a lot going on and it is totally worth it. So stick through till the end. I know you can. I wrote it and I have the attention span of a Goldfish at the moment ( that will be explained in paragraph 6ish and beyond. But don’t skip tp paragraph 6 because then you will miss the build up and then be forced to go BACK and read it and it will be all confusing. So don’t skip stuff. Alright. Comprende. Capish?) Now that we got that out of the way. Here we go. Now.. . .( long awkward pause) . . . Just kiddin… now! Enjoy.

So for starters I finished work at the HLCC, bought a 2000 Subaru Forester (still working on a name. Hasn’t come to me yet.) and ran the Top of Utah Half Marathon in 1 hour 46 mins. I was happy with that. School Started and I finally decided to declare my major. Yeah after almost 2 years of school. It was time. And for all y’all, it is Public health. There might be a business minor in there somewhere but we will see about that. I have 3 years of school left so we will worry about all that minor nonsense at a later date.

The real meaning of this blog is because of the Death Hollow hike that some Jeru friends did over Labor Day weekend. We went down and camped outside of the booming metropolis of Escalante. Think of a strange way to say it and you will probably be close to how the locals say it. I won’t even try to do it justice in type format. It was supposed to be a 4 hour drive. And for the people that were driving down that got separated from the caravan with the person who was in charge of the whole thing, that is how long it took them to get there. Us on the other hand, with 2 maps and myriads of GPS’, it took 9 and a half. And why you might ask. Well we decided without really deciding, more like passive ( and by passive I mean sleeping) decisions by the person in charge (no offense to you Bryan! Promise), that going through Capital Reef National park ,almost getting to Lake Powell and subsequently adding a full 200 miles to the trip was a great way to spend the afternoon. And boy was it! That has to be the best detour/getting lost/ not paying attention for 4 hours of my LIFE! If you haven’t been to Capital Reef I would highly recommend it! So after that LITTLE detour and driving back through Capital Reef ( it looks completely different from the other direction, so I would recommend driving BOTH directions), we turned down the right road and then proceeded to drive in some more spectacular country! Man southern Utah is BEAUTIFUL! What happened to the middle part? God must have run out of time or materials or both. It was one of the greatest drives ever. I have never been so happy to make, yes I counted, 11 U-turns in one day. There was so much great stuff to see! The U-Turns just gave it a different vantage point. It was amazing. We saw everything from amazing red cliffs, to alpine-esque mountains to the barren desert to the canyons and then a harrowing drive over Hell’s backbone. Sweet drive, just don’t drive off the road. You will die. Guaranteed. They don’t believe in guardrails, which is TOTALLY justified! BECAUSE… it would totally detract from the view. I agree with them. Really I do!

So finally after that amazing drive we reached our campground and then proceed to have a great camping excursion with 32 people from the Jeru crew. It was awesome. Then the next morning we got up and 7 of us CRAZY people started the hike through Death Hollows. It was so awesome! It is amazing country for sure. The wind has carved out some of the most intricate designs in the rock and the river snakes through it making some amazingly huge sheer cliffs. It was absolutely breath taking. So we hiked till dark that night and camped on this little sandy wash for the night and fell asleep to the crystal clear stars above the canyon. It was amazing. And since it got dark at 8:45, that is when we went to sleep. It was awesome! Then the next morning we hiked the rest of the way out and to the road. It was over 20 miles of hiking and it was so cool.
There were a few problems though. First was my stupidity. Well, ok, all of the forthcoming problems were because of my stupidity. But this one was COMPLETELY avoidable. I decided that it would be a good idea to go on this hike wearing Chacos. If you don’t know what they are then look them up. They are awesome hiking sandals. And they are a good idea for the land and water hiking that I was doing. The problem was not the shoes but the operator. Me. I decided that it was ok to not break my feet in. That is a problem. The first day was just dandy (except for problem #2). My feet were fine and all was good. The second day though, the sand and the straps and all that jazz got to me. It wore away the skin above my big toes and around my ankles.

Let me clarify this again. Chacos are Ahmazing. Not their fault. Just wanted to make sure I got that point across. Chacos rock. Me…. Not so much.

So there was much pain involved with that. But oh well that is what you pay for being bright like me.

Problem numero dos.

I SOMETIMES don’t plan things out. (refer to previous problem for example) I was just having SO much fun that I didn’t look as to where I was walking or jumping a few (ok 5) times, and ended up getting soaked. This exacerbated the fact that I was wearing cottonish unders. Use your imagination. Ouch and BRRR.

Tertiary issue

I wore shorts. Yeah. To Bryan’s (the guy in charge, very good at what he does promise) credit he told us to wear pants. Good linen, fast drying ones. Well I didn’t. I could go on for hours about how I was busy and forgetful but that doesn’t detract from the fact that I, myself, made the error and BOY HOWDY am I paying for it now. So keep this in mind. We hiked on Sunday and Monday, and on Wednesday I began to notice a few bumps on my exposed legs that had been flogged by the foliage as we hiked along. I didn’t think anything of it at first because my legs were so torn up that it was a natural progression of things. Well then there were some bumps on my wrist. And then on my waist line ( a little to close for comfort if you know what I mean) the on the other leg. Then on my other forearm. Then more on the waist line. Then the feet. Then the rump area. Then farther up the legs. Yes both. Then above the knees. Then the mid thigh. Which is where they have stopped for now. I went to the Doctor on Thursday and he didn’t know what they were but gave me some anti-histamines, and told me to come back if it got worse. Well. On Thursday it was just one spot on the waist and only on the feet. Do you think it has gotten worse? Well I do. I began to be worried. Ok that is the wrong thing to say. I was freaking out. So I spent a good deal of time on the interweb and I’m pretty sure that it is Poison Oak. That in and of itself conjures up a whole’nother set of problems. First of all it is because of the oil that is on the plant. That gets absorbed into the skin and then the body FREAKS out, of which it is totally entitled and encouraged to do, and then the hives surface and the itch/discomfort fest begins. All because of my stupidity. Needless to say, y’all might want to invest in Chattem stock. They are the makers of Cortisone, and I will be using A LOT of that.

So for the last week I haven’t been wearing socks or shoes. Only my Jerusa cruisers. They are the only footwear that doesn’t aggravate the sores and the hives. But for church to day it was a regional conference with Elder Holland, Packer and Snow with Sister Beck. There was no way I was wearing a suit with sandals and no socks. So I donned the Socks and shoes and marched across campus to watch the Lord’s apostles speak. And it was amazing. Truly it was. What was NOT amazing was the walk home. You know when you are in pain/discomfort/REALLY mad at somebody because they borrowed your Pyrex pan and wouldn’t give it back/ that one girl wouldn’t talk to you in high school and then started dating your best friend (DISCLAIMER: not from person experience. Just a metaphor) feeling where you want to smile and be cordial but your body is shaking. Yeah. The whole way home. And there was this really cute girl that I was talking to so I HAD to keep composed and not do either of the things that I wanted to do which were to rip my pants and shoes and socks off and drop to the ground and itch myself while sprinting home. I was contemplating how the physics of that was going to work, but that was too much for my mind to handle at one time. I mean talking to a girl is enough to stop a my thinking processes all together. Throw all that other stuff into the mix and WHOA NELLY! Stop the wagon train!
I did get home. But the previously mentioned articles of clothing didn’t last long in any proximity to my epidermis. I took them off in a hustle and GENEROUSLY applied the Hydrocortisone cream to the itchy areas, which is BASICALLY everywhere. Hence why you should buy stock. 1.25 oz. doesn’t last long with this much itchiness. I wonder if they make Costco sized tubes. It should be at least 200 oz in a huge squeeze bottle. Can you imagine the elation I would feel upon finding that little treasure. Forget the entirety of the DeBeers diamond mines! I would be in heaven.

So as you can expect, bright and early tomorrow morning I will be paying a minute little visit to the BYU Student Health Center. And probably spending a small fortune on Re washing everything I own because now I am paranoid that that blasted oil is on everything that I have in my possession. Well this should be a fun few weeks. Yeah 1-2 weeks for the hives to go away. Y’all could just set up chairs on my front lawn and watch me freak out because of the itching/ new hives. I’m sure it would be comical. WAIT! I could charge admission fees and earn some money off this misery. This just might turn into a good thing. But if that doesn’t happen then I always have the sympathy of the girls at BYU. Slap a little face of anguish (easily conjured in my present condition) and unabating love and brownies here we come! This just might become the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. Maybe… I wouldn’t bet on it. But Chattem Inc. stock. That is a good plan brothers and sister. Good plan.

My Family

2010-06-21T13:08:00.003-06:00

Let me preface all this with… I love my family. A lot. But man we are a weird bunch. My mom and I have the strangest relationship. We are always laughing and making fun of each other in a playful way. She comes up to me with her fists in the air like a boxer saying that she is going to beat the life out of me with a huge smile on her face. I laugh, kinda ignoring her and then I attack her. Usually with some tickling and picking her up and carrying her to her room, all the while she is telling me I can’t be doing what I am doing. And that it’s not fair. This is a daily occurrence.

Then there is my dad. He so does not fit in this family with his demeanor and attitude. He is what saves this family from outward looks and questions of sanity. He is so put together. I wonder why he didn’t share those genes with me some days. He is so calm and collected… all the time. So not like the rest of us. But he is the voice of reason that keeps the rest of us from being thrown in the loony bin. That is why he is perfect for my mom, and why I love him so much.

Now us children… We take after my mother. That is a fact. We are all a little bit quirky and probably too outgoing for our own good at times. I distinctly remember when we lived in Utah and my brother Jonathan was making my sister Janneke and me laugh so hard that I’m sure that I peed my pants. I don’t think I have laughed harder other than when I am around my family. Whoever I end up marrying is going to need to be a brave person because my immediate family is straight from the loony bin some days. And then there is my extended family with 32 combined aunts and uncles and a ton of cousins. That is a whole different story.

I love my family and I am so glad that I was born to the people that I was and with the siblings that I have. So there is my rainy day cheer up, because even though it is the first day of summer, technically, it is 50 degrees and cold and rainy. Oh wait that is what it has been like since I got back from Jerusalem. Jerusalem was beautiful and warm and sunny the entire time I was there. And I get this rainy cold welcome home in Idaho. Oh well. I love it here. I really wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.

2010-06-17T07:45:00.001-06:00

Allrighty… Well I have taken a long enough Hiatus from the blogging world. I keep having some good blog Ideas, but alas I never get around to actually blogging them. Oh well. That is going to change now. This isn’t going to be a journal/what I’m doing right now in life type of blog. So if that is what you were hoping for…. Well then this isn’t the blog for you. I bet if you go to the top of the page and hit next blog, after you go through about 7 million Chinese blogs, there might be an interesting one. Or you could try the cool sites tab area on this blog. Oh look at me being all helpful.

Well enough of those shenanigans! This blog is going to be random stuff that I think about that I think is interesting. You might not think so. If that is the case, I have already outlined for you how to spend your blog reading time elsewhere. Or you could write your own blog and add your meandering thoughts into the blogoshpere. But then you have to do all that fancy set up stuff and all that jazz. And let’s face it, if you are that worried about what random things go on in my head, then you probably aren’t the type to go and set up a blog. I digress.

Well to start off this new format, I can’t think of anything else more worthy than the 18 year old cat that is now sitting on my lap. Let’s just say that she wasn’t this way before. She was affectionately known as the spawn of Satan, devil kitty, ect. You get the picture. She was a neighborhood terror. She hated small children. She hated big people. She would never sit on your lap, and she did not like to be petted or scratched for more than about 4 seconds. If you forgot and had some vain hope that Satan incarnate would allow such affection to be shown toward her, then she would immediately hiss, take a swat at what was soon going to be a once useful appendage, and then run/jump away from you. And then resume her usual pompous walk around the house as if she was the queen of the universe. Her name is Kista.

The exact date as to when we got her is wildly contested and fraught with stories of trips to Egypt and Jerusalem. She isn’t from there. Sorry for all you who got really excited that I had some exotic animal that was really one of Pharaohs’ undead cats, although that would explain some things. She is just a black and white long haired cat. We have had her for almost as long as I can remember, and as much as we have wanted her dead/ had offers for her to be killed, we still have her. I always wonder why she is still around, but it must be her sheer hatred of the world that keeps her alive.

Here is a brief recap of some interesting things that she has done in her life. I will try to put them in Chronological order, but don’t count on too much accuracy. First, the day that we went to get her, she was hiding in a thorny bush. That should have set off some red flags, but my brother picked her out, and in all technicalities, she is his cat. Over the ensuing years that we lived in Fillmore Utah, she maimed many a neighborhood cat. This was evident by the wide swaths of cat hair on our lawn the morning after a cat fight was heard in the night. There was usually never any black hair in the mix. And Kista always seemed quite smug the day after said incidents. She also attacked small children. I think she thought of them as infringing on her territory. That got her the boot outside many a time. Now that I think of it, she probably went and maimed some other cat because she was mad she couldn’t maim the small human. Why we didn’t leave her in Utah when we moved to Idaho is beyond me, I guess it is my mom’s soft heart. I think that if she could have seen the future events of cat bites and surgery waiting for her, she wouldn’t have drugged the cat and moved her 1500 miles north. Kista had to be drugged for all the cat lovers out there. She didn’t make it 2 hours in the car without going berserk in her carrier. But then after we drugged her she was even worse. She somehow found a way to press her behind up against the edge of the carrier and spray the seat of our minivan with pee. I think she was saying that no matter what we did, she was going to make this move a horrible experience for everybody. In Idaho she was relegated to the outside only because of her child attacking tendencies. At first she wouldn’t leave a 2 foot perimeter around our house and would very ferociously attack anything that would enter this area. She got over that and eventually began attacking neighborhood dogs. I guess cats were too easy, and dogs were the next challenge after small children. Then she bit my mom’s hand. In all fairness to the cat, she was being chased by a large dog, and my mom grabbed her mid chase. Needless to say Kista bit into the bone of her knuckle and my mom had to have surgery and IV medication for weeks. Many offers to kill the cat flooded the house. The cat was granted political asylum in my sister Janneke’s room for a couple weeks until the fervor waned.

She was an ornery mean animal that some how got the love of us kids. After Janneke left to go to college, I made sure that Kista slept in my room at night. I think I was still worried that if she was left outside at night, one of my uncles or one of the men from our ward would come and kill her. Well over the years she has become an inside/outside cat. She sleeps on my bed at night, much to my dismay. If she is on my bed, she thinks that she should sleep in between my legs, and that if I move, I am infringing on her space and she attacks. That is a comfortable way to sleep. But in reality it is better than her whining outside my window to come in. You’d think that after 4 hours she would get the idea that she wasn’t going to be let in. Right? Wrong. There was one night when I was in high school, that I thought that I was going to make her become an outside only cat. That failed. All that was accomplished was that I got no sleep that night, and neither did Kista. She is a determined little fellow that is for sure.

And her longevity is not due to pampering, that’s for sure. She eats Western Family Adult cat food only. She won’t eat anything else. She went to the vet to get spayed and to have her shots as a kitten, and then for a bout with adult feline acne about 5 years ago. Didn’t know that cats got zits did ya. Well they do, and it is gross. Other than that there haven’t been any vet visits that I know of. That was until a few months ago. We have been shaving (shaving your cat?!?! Yeah I know.) her for a few years because she started to get huge wads of fur on her when she was shedding because she didn’t clean herself as well anymore. We used to take her to the groomers, but after last year’s fiasco… Needless to say it took hours and hours to shave her because would lose it every time they started. So about a month ago, we took her to the vet and had a sedated grooming. Yeah, they do that. They knocked her out and shaved her. But to do this she had to have a physical. I know this is horrible, but everybody in my family was almost hoping that the doctor would come back and say that she had a terrible disease and she needed to be put down. Nope. Everything is normal. The vet actually commented on how healthy she was. Fantastic.

Well after 18 years she will now sit on my lap for hours. But only me. Nobody else. But she is going deaf and definitely senile. She comes in the house and will stare at a wall and yowl. This is not meowing, or even loudly meowing. This is an all out moan, meow, scream all rolled into one, at the top of her lungs. If you yell at her, she looks at you like, “Yes? Is there something wrong?” And then walks away. Oh the Joys of my cat.

So there is the first of the random wanderings of my mind. Like I said before, don’t like it, then press the next blog button at the top of the page. Some crazy Chinese man would love for you to try and decipher his blog. At least mine is in English.

the final wrapup, a little late :)

2010-05-17T23:15:00.000-06:00

ok for all y'all who read my blog while I was in Jerusalem, sorry for the cliffhanger ending. I really did make it back ok and it was an amazing end to a semester. After the Dead Sea and finals were over and the volcano took a chill pill, things were great. The last week was like this:

First we took a 4 hour bus ride to go to the Red Sea and go snorkeling. That was amazing. There were so many AWESOME fish that were swimming around and... I digress. That was an awesome start to the week. We got to lounge around and sit on the beach and just enjoy ourselves. It was awesome. But something to remember, is that sunscreen that says very water proof and sweat proof, isn't necessarily either of those things. I lathered up on the Sunscreen and let it dry and all that jazz and then got in the water. and immediately got fried. I was as read as a lobster! but the worst part is that I wasn't the worst one there. But that is what we get for getting a little bit too excited about warmth and sunshine and relaxation.

Then things got fun. We did the last week of the life of Christ and went to all the sites and read the stories of Christ and the infinite atonement. I have to say that it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. It was so plainly evident that Christ was the savior of the world and really did walk the earth. He is the literal son of God and did all the things that it is purported that he did. It was the perfect ending to the greatest semester of my life. I could not believe my eyes and heart with all that I was feeling and seeing. We didn't go to any place that I hadn't been at some point prior in the semester, except Lazarus' tomb,mainly because that is in Bethany which was behind the separation wall. So going there would have been on the tricky side. And by tricky, I mean trying to stay alive. Because if I wasn't shot by the guards as I tried to climb the wall, I sure would have been killed by the teachers! Even though I had been to all the places, it was a different feel to the entire experience. We walked places in silence and listened to music about the life of Christ and it was just surreal. I couldn't believe what I was feeling. There was so much going on that I was overwhelmed at times with the things that were going on. It was amazing. Then after that, things started to wind down quick.

The last night that we were there we had a memories night. I don't know what they were planning on time wise, but it was 5 or more hours long. and it was totally worth it. it started at 7ish and ended after midnight. We had everything from awards to skits to student made movies, which were awesome! (Thanks Alex) It was such an awesome night that was filled with so many other emotions. I was so happy that I had come and gotten to know all the amazing people there. I was getting excited to go home, but at the same time, I was more heart broken that I was leaving this place that really felt like home. I loved the feeling of family that had grown while we were there, and I was not looking forward to saying goodbye to all the people that I knew. Needless to say it was an emotional night. Especially because were were leaving the JC at 3 AM. So after the farewell memories night, we were in a mad rush to get everything packed and ready to go. That is when the craziness of traveling started.

So we left the JC at 3 am and continued to travel for a straight 34 hours. It was pretty smooth sailing all the way to DC, but of course international travel only gets crazy when you get back to the US. I had managed to attempt to reset my clock my trying to sleep at about the right times Idaho time. And over all it kinda worked. Still kinda sleep deprived, but not too bad. But back to the craziness. Customs was a joke in DC. There were so many people and the line was so long that I literally ran past the agent and handed him my slip and he didn't even ask any questions. It was really a joke. But oh well. That was over. We boarded the plane and flew to Denver, where without fail, there were delays. We were delayed about an hour and a half, and finally got into SLC at midnight. By this time I was so messed up time wise my body didn't know what to think. Which was good, because I went to my sisters house and promptly fell asleep.

The next day I got on another airplane, after leaving some of the presents in Utah, thus saving weight, because I was technically tipping the scales, but the nice Israeli Lady didn't say anything. Whew. So I got on the plane and finally flew home, 42 hours after I left Jerusalem. I met my dad at the airport, drove home, and the came back to the airport to fly to California with my dad. This was a retaliation boys trip because my mom was in Guam at the time on an girls trip. Only fair if you ask me. So my dad and I went to Magic Mountain and rode all the sweet rides. There were 11 or 12 and we went on a few more than once so there were 15 or 16 rides in about 6 hours. It was so much fun but the problem was that after that many rides in a short amount of time, the equilibrium in my head was getting permanently messed up. I couldn't walk straight after about ride 10 but there were still rides that needed to be ridden. SO I bit the bullet and kept riding. It was hard but I persevered.

Then I came home and thought that life was going to get back to normal, but that sure didn't happen. 18 hours after my mom landed after coming home from Guam and less than 12 hours after my dad and I landed from Cali, my sister called my mom and said that she was having an Urgent C-Section delivery the next morning. so my mom got on the phone, got a plane ticket to Salt Lake, and was gone for the next two weeks.

So that is the new exciting news of the family. I have a new nephew. His name is Christopher Michael Ewert and he was born 3 weeks early. He is really small. To give you a visual, his torso is as big as a 1 Lb brick of butter. When he left the Hospital he was 5 Lbs, 7 or 8 OZ. But he is doing good.

Other than that, I have been doing yard work and working at the Hayden Lake Country CLub as a server, busser, bartender, maintenance, whatever else they want me to do person. I am super busy, but that is good because I need to pay off my student loans some how! So it is going to be a good summer and I will try and keep this blog going, but seeing how consistent I was with the most thrilling time of my life.... don't expect too much:) but I'll try.

Thanks for following my random Jerusalem Blog and hope you liked it. Because I don't know if you caught this: but I loved it and would recommend the program to any student at any of the BYUs. It is well worth the cost, and it truly is life changing! Love y'all and thanks!

Finals, Volcanoes, and the Dead Sea

2010-04-19T13:40:00.001-06:00

Well things have been NUTS for the last week or so. We have done a ton of stuff and time is winding down quickly. But let’s begin with the good stuff. And by good stuff, I mean the Dead Sea. Ok that was totally anti climactic. Y’all were probably hoping for something like the second coming or volcanoes or something like that. But alas.

Well the Dead Sea was, well, devoid of anything living. I almost became part of that ecosystem, I’ll have you know. I felt like a slug with salt poured all over me, or on the tasty side of life, a strawberry with tons of sugar. But literally more like the slug, since it was the Dead Sea. Which is full of salt, in case you were absent for history, or Geography class, or well, church for that matter, which I suspect you weren’t if you are reading this. Well now that we have that established, whatever that was, let’s move onto how amazing it was! Well for starters, I floated. That never happens. I usually win sinking contests while swimming in lake or pool, but not here. I could stand in the water when the water was 30 feet deep, and my head was above water the whole time! Well almost the whole time. I learned that I my legs are so floaty, that if I get into regular swimming position, my legs want to be above my head. That meant that my head was now below the not so tasty water. After that, we swam down shore and found this black mud that people pay lots for, and got it for free. We just had to cross over some fences that had been pulled down and looked past the signs that were so corroded we couldn’t read them. But I have to say that if the signs were corroded, I can’t be held responsible for what they once saids. For all I know, they could have said, “FREE EXPENSIVE MUD!” Ya never know. But I coated myself with this stuff, and exacerbated the cuts I didn’t know that I had that were already stinging from the Dead Sea water. But it was totally worth it. My skin was so soft! It was amazing. So I would recommend it to anybody. But be warned. Do not get in your eyes, on your lips, and for heaven’s sake, don’t shave the morning before you get in. Trust me.

Then the fun began. And by fun I mean finals. I again became anti social and studied for 8 hours a day, but I knew that it was going to happen. But they are over and I think I did good on the Ancient Near East final, and the Field trip final, well that is a joke. The best joke in the world! They hid “clues” all over the center, which were exact questions to the test, but I don’t think they know about Google Docs. So basically they gave is all questions to the test, we collaborated. It was just basic cramming. After the test we asked the director of the Center if that is what he intended, and he was happy we were so resourceful. So I guess the answer is yes. But because of that, all of us missed 2 questions out of 50. But in a pass fail class, WHOCARES!! But then there was the New Testament Final… well, it happened.

And then there was a volcano. Y’all have probably all heard about the Icelandic Volcano that is causing a minor queue in Europe. And now you are probably wondering why I would be worried about a small line somewhere in Europe, caused by a small volcano in Iceland. Well SUPPOSEDLY, that line is in Vienna, which I have a layover in on Thursday, and there is the possibility that it might interfere with my flight. Well I have a departure meeting in exactly 2 minutes, so I’ll update you then. BREAKING NEWS!! Actually nothing has changed. If we can’t fly out because of the ash of death, then we will stay here. Big surprise.

BUT IN OTHER NEWS!! WE WENT SNORKELING!! That was so sweet. It was in the Red Sea in Eilat and the water was so clear. It was amazing. It was my first snorkeling experience and I was amazed. I don’t think you understand. I… was… A-MAZED… I didn’t know that they were colors like that in Nature. I now know where the designers of the 80’s got their inspiration. I think it should have stayed on the fish and not on Hammer pants. But that’s just me. It was such a great day with sandy beaches, sunshine, crystal clear water, beautiful fish, and the requisite dishonest sunscreen. Very water proof does not mean water proof. I think that it was opposite day when they printed that label. I applied it liberally, waited 45 minutes for it to dry and then got in the water for 10 minutes. Well on a good note, it didn’t come of completely, but on a bad note it did come off in patches. This means that I have some tan spots and some lobster spots. But I don’t think that a day at the beach would be complete without sunburns. So it was a good day.

Well things are winding down here, which is depressing, but at the same time exciting. It is weird. I don’t know what to think. But whatever I think, I am leaving (hopefully, baring Volcanic disturbances). Thursday morning at 3 AM, after a light Breakfast at 2 AM, I am leaving and there is nothing that I can do about it. I guess that it will set in during the copious hours that I will have traveling. I mean who wouldn’t want 39 hours in a day. Some people would KILL for that. Well things are going to be exciting for the next 3 days. Sleep deprivation is a given. Crying… yeah right… uhh next subject. Becoming Houdini is a must, because they laws of physics are laughing at me. There is too much stuff to go into a small zip up space, and weigh only 50 pounds. But I defied those laws when I came here, and I am sure that I can defy them again.

Well have fun, and maybe I’ll get better at blogging in the future. HA. I would rather place a bet on a Shetland pony with a 6’ jockey. But that is just me. Well have fun!

Oh and I didn't get the internship at the hospital for the summer. But oh well. COUNTRY CLUB HERE I COME!!

MORE PICTURES!!

2010-04-15T05:44:00.001-06:00

So I just got pictures of Jordan, witch is Petra and the Car Museum, and other things. Hope ya like!

Pictures!

2010-04-11T08:52:00.001-06:00

Ok so I didn't want to sort the pictures and there was limited time to upload, so y'all get the brunt of it all. Hope y'all like some of them!

The mayhem of Easter in Jerusalem, and the unexpected amazement of Jordan

2010-04-11T08:37:00.000-06:00

Ok well I’m not going to promise anything small for this blog post or pictures because every time I seem to do that, nothing of the sort actually makes it online. So if you see any colorful things or brevity in the following pixels, then count yourself one lucky dog!
Well let’s see what has happened in the last few weeks…. A lot.

Oh is that not enough for you. Well aren’t you just so demanding! Let’s start from where we left things off. The first major thing that happened was Palm Sunday. And in case you forgot, this is Jerusalem. Lots of stuff happened here that a few people think is important. Like this somewhat known person known as Jesus Christ. I guess there are a few books that are written about him, and because of that a few people showed up to mingle and discuss his life. And by a few I mean a few 10’s of thousands, if not more. It all began with palm Sunday where the biggest parade that was open for anybody to join in, happened. The street was packed with people and it was a mass of people that was a good mile or 2 long. And this was a rockin moving party! Everybody was singing and dancing in their own language and carrying tons of palm frawns. There were many trees that gave up their leafy greenery for this day, and many Muslim kids who probably ripped them off their neighbor’s tree and then sold them to the Christian tourists. And people say that there isn’t harmony in this city. Well at least some economic harmony. For a day, or a couple hours….. But man these pilgrims loved to sing! We were by some Baptist people that were rockin out and then we joined some Philippinos who sang some sweet songs in English for a good 3 hours as we all walked the 3 ish miles of the route. It was so cool. I definitely think that Mormons need to get a little more excited about palm Sunday and Easter in general. We are kinda quite about a really important event in history. Just sayin.
Something else that was awesome here were the scout troops that are here. THEY PLAY THE BAGPIPES!! WHO DOES THAT??? Well obviously the scouts here. And they all parade around on Palm Sunday and have drums too. I think that I got jiped, but that is besides the point.
Next we went and had a field trip around the Old City to all the churches that I had already explored legally and or illegally. It was fun to see a different slant on the churches history from actual professors who have stuff that they have researched. That is always good.
Then the next exciting thing was the informal talent show that we had. There was much singing and skitting and other hilarity. I think I hurt myself laughing so much. I think I got high off of the endorphins. And as you probably guessed it, I sang. What a surprise. I know. There were 5 of us that listened to the Peanut Butter and Jelly song by Insideout about a million times and got all the notes and lyrics down, and then added choreographing and, I don’t mean to brag, but it was SWEET! At this point in the binary code that makes up the message that you are reading I would probably promise a video, but we all know how well those are kept at this point…

Then we had another field trip where we went to Herod’s Volcano shaped fortress with an amazing, non narcistic name. Ok that was another lie. Its called Herodian. That was cool but let’s be frank here, it was a glorified tel, which is a fancy schmancy name for a city that was built on the rubble of another failed city, which eventually failed as well. Hence why we visit it. Because it is old and broken. I know that I should be excited about all these sites that people only read about, but they all look the exact same! They are all shades of brown/white. They all hired crappy architects, hence why they are broken. All of them had walls, which some angry guys with big wooden things came and broke down, hence the failing. And all of them had big holes that they “sealed” the inside with mostly impermeable, somewhat adhesive, mostly disappeared by now plaster, to try and contain water, so that in September they could drink the water that they channeled into the pit in March, which is now NASTY, all in the vain attempt to survive in the inhospitable desert. They call this thing a cistern. Exciting huh.

Then we had a little Christmas program on this hill overlooking Bethlehem. That was awesome! It was a gorgeous day and the sun was setting while we were finishing. I could look over the valley and see where Christ was born and I could imagine the Shepherds with their flocks in a setting very much like the one that I was in and having the angels telling them that Christ was born. It was so amazing!

Then Easter happened. There was the Via Dolorosa, which is the path the Christ walked with the cross as he made his way to Calvary, and the thousands of people who were walking the streets of the old city in remembrance of Christ. It was a completely different feel from the Palm Sunday walk. It was somber and interesting to see that no matter what ideology a person followed, they could all walk and remember Christ together. Until they got to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher that is. Then everybody gets mad and the Jewish police close the gates and people start fighting. Really spiritual huh. The irony that is housed in that church is fantastic. They all believe in Christ who taught love peace and harmony, but if somebody sweeps the wrong step, heaven help us all, because the priests try and kill each other.

So instead of getting all caught up in that, a group of us decided to continue our musical terrorism. That consists of 4 or 5 of us going to any church that we can get in and singing hymns. It is so much fun because people don’t really expect 4 or 5 part harmony to come from college students. I mean we are already out of place in the holy land, because 95% of the people that come and visit are retired. And then we are not causing riots, so people are REALLY thrown off. But we did that in 4 churches and it was amazing. I love old churches because they have amazing acoustics, which is another thing our churches lack. But that is beside the point.
Then Easter happened. We stayed out of the old city for fear of crazy priests and instead went to the Garden Tomb for morning service. That was an experience! It was a non-denominational Christian service with a band, and it was awesome. Now I am not going to say that we need a band, because we don’t. I appreciate peace in my worship and greater depth in my sermons. Both of which weren’t strong in this service. It was more like a pretty good concert that was clean. That was the awesome part. After that we went to an Anglican mass, which as you could probably deduce, was a COMPLETELY different feel. It was cool to see how different people worship the risen Lord. Then later that night we had general conference. Talk about differences! It was so awesome though. I love the cultural differences that are available here.

And the Jordan happened. And I have to say that I loved that country. I mean any country that has had car loving people as its king has to be good! It is actually really clean and is trying to modernize itself, and it is doing a really good job. The people there are nice and I would recommend that people go and experience Jordan at least once. And go to a Turkish Bath. Trust me. Especially Petra. It is like Zion’s National Park but with ancient ruins carved in the walls. It was soo cool. The Iconic treasury was so awesome, as was expected, but what was unexpected was what else was available. There were amazing overlooks into the rift valley that goes from the Sea of Galilee to Africa, and is slowly coming apart. It was breath taking. And the best part is that we could hike all over the mountain and do some freestyle rock climbing. It was so much fun! Probably one of the greatest days I’ve had.

Also up there on the list was the next day. We started out the day by Amman at an ancient Roman city, and blah blah blah, please refer to some binary code in the vertical direction for what I think about those. But then that night we went to the Royal Automobile Museum of Jordan. This houses the cars that King Hussein actually drove, which includes old Aston Martins, and quite a few Rolls-Royce Phantoms, a smattering of Mercedes and Buicks and about 30 old motorcycles. It was so cool. But then the last room happened. That about made 3 grown men and a way sweet girl about cry. Let me list the cars to you. A 1983 BMW M1, A Ferrari F40, a Ferrari F50, an Aston Martin AM8, a Porsche Carerra GT, a Lotus Esprit, an Mercedes 300 Rally car (The last 2 King Hussein actually raced in Rallies) and some other rally cars. The great thing is that King Hussein drove and loved all these cars. They were a collection just for a collection. But what about killed me were the 3 cars that King Abdullah the second had included on loan. I get all jittery just thinking about these 3. I will list them in the order that I saw them. A Ferrari 599 GTB Pinafarinna, a Mercedes SL65 Black edition, and a Bugatti Veyron. It was A-MAZ-ING! The security guards must have wondered what was wrong with us as all 5 of us, Ali included, geeked out over top speeds, cylinders, weight to power ratios, car designs and drag coefficients. At one point we were laying on the ground admiring the flat underside and diffuser of the Veyron. Sad I know. But it was definitely the best $4.50 I have ever spent.

But what was amazing was the hotel. It was built in the 60’s, and nothing has been updated since then. Maybe the bedspreads, but the drapes really matched the wallpaper, the carpet was different on each floor, you had to actually open a swinging door to get in the elevator. It had been kept up but the styling was SOOO old. It really was a blast from the past. But it was better than the hotel by Petra. Petra Palace by behind! Well I guess it was if you were talking about a Roman era palace that hasn’t weather the test of time too well. Oh well after the 5 star hotels that we had in Egypt, I guess that I can’t complain.

Then the day after we got back from Jordan, we had the Formal Student concert for the people that we have met in the city. I sang in 3 different numbers and the concert ranged from excerpts of the Messiah, to Claire De Lune, Rhapsody in Blue, and to churchy stuff. It was really good, and hopefully the people felt something even though we can’t technically proselyte.

Well there is the catch up for the next while. I can’t believe that I leave this amazing place in less than 2 weeks! AHH! But I do have to say that I have learned so much, and hopefully I have really changed for the better.
Well peace out for the time being!

Galilee

2010-03-26T05:08:00.000-06:00

Galilee!
Well where do I begin with one of the most Amazing experience of my life? Well I think that the beginning would be a good place.

We pulled out of Jerusalem on Monday the 15 and drove up to Caesarea which Herod built on the ocean as a port to rival Alexandria in Egypt. It seems that everybody just want some part of the trade pie of Antiquity. That was amazing and beautiful and old. Oh wait EVERYTHING here in the Holy Land is old. I guess that is the reason that I came here. After that we traveled to Megiddo and looked over the Jezreel valley where the battle of Armagedon is going to take place. Just getting the perspective on that was worth the trip. It is a huge wide plain that has been fought on all through the ages. From Deborah and Barak of the Old Testament, to the 1948 war of Independence. This piece of land has had more angry people stomping on it than the entrances to all the Walmarts on Black Friday. It really put into perspective all the battles that are going to be happening in the future because of this small country. But that is not hard to see because Israel has military installations all over the place. Then we made our way to Nazareth. It was astonishing to see the places of the Annunciation. I do have to say that there was a SMIDGE to much emphasis put on Mary, but that is to be expected when the Catholics were a main force in the town. The Churches were beautiful and the devotion of the people was really evident. One of the Coolest things were the mosaics from all around the world depcting the Annuciation that were hung on the walls. IT was cool to see Mary and Jesus depicted as Black, White, Asian and everything inbetween. But America did not let down when it came to its entry. Crazy kinda weird modern art thing. Oh America…

Then we arrived at the Sea of Galilee and it was BEAUTIFUL! Everything is green and blooming. Another reason to come to Jerusalem in the Spring. It doesn’t look dead. But I do have to say that I was surprised because The Sea, or more aptly named, Lake of Galilee was not huge. I could see across it and Lake Coeur d’Alene is bigger. But this body of water does have a one up in Lake Coeur d’Alene, namely a man named Jesus Christ walking on it. The place that we stayed at is called Ein Gev. It is a Kibbutz , socalist community thing, that is situated right on the shore and right under the slopes that rise to make the Golan Plateau. It was so amazingly beautiful. It was a picturesque piece of real estate.
The next day we had class. Not to thrilling. We had class 4 times while we were there, and I will not be tantalizing you with those details. Just think of 5+ hours of class in a classroom and you get the Idea.

But the Next day was amazing. We went on a field trip to the Mount of Beatitudes, Capernaum, St. Peter Primacy, and a church that commemorates the loaves and the fishes miracle. Every place that we went was filled with amazing things and I could not believe were I was. At the Mt. of Beatitudes we talked about the Beatitudes, naturally, and it put it all into perspective being there around the area where Christ would have talked to the people and given them greater direction for their lives. Then we walked down the hill to the Churches that were commemorating the loaves and fishes miracle and Christ calling Peter to go and preach after Christ had been resurrected. It was interesting to see that Peter and the other people went back to regular life after Christ had been crucified. But Christ made short work of that and supplied the Miracle of the massive catch of fish so that the families of the apostles would be able to subsist while the bread winners were out doing the work of the Lord. It really shows how Christ paid special attention to the needs of those that followed him.

And Naturally the loaves and the fishes was another example of that. But when we got to the little church we were treated to something special. While in the Church that isn’t to big or prominent, a Russian Orthodox group of Pilgrims showed up with their own priest. But this was no ordinary priest. This man had pipes. I would be willing to say that he would be right up there with Pavarotti. He even had a little group of amazing backup singers. It was so cool. They were singing traditional songs and it was sure an experience of a lifetime. I will try and get the video up on here soon. Then we went and got on a boat and rode across the Sea of Galilee. We of course sang Master the Tempest is Raging. That was requisite. We also talked about Christ walking out onto the water about 3 miles to get to the boat with his apostles in it, and how Peter did walk on the water. He had the faith to walk out and away from the boat. It wasn’t until he took his eyes off of Christ that he started to sink. But the great thing to think about is that Christ helped him up and then walked back to the boat with Peter. I think that many people forget that part or dismiss it.

Then the next day we went and hiked through this canyon to a waterfall, and it was gorgeous. And cold. The reason that I know the second part is because I went swimming in it. I could not stand up when I got out I was so cold, but it was so worth it! Also the fact that 50 other people were there all doing it made it a lot easier. Dumb yes, fun, of course. Would I do it again, maybe. We also went to a couple places on the Golan Heights that were pretty cool. They were mainly just to see the sights of the area and climb up stuff. In my opinion you can never climb on too much stuff. One place was called Gamla and was one spot that Christ could have referred to as the city on the hill. It is right in a canyon and is perched in this little hill and is visible from Capernaum on the other side of the Sea of Galilee.
Then after we got back from that we went on a Kayaking trip down part of the Jordan river. It was so much fun because the Jordan is the perfect river to float down and enjoy the scenery. But of course there wasn’t much scenery being seen. We were too busy waging war against the other people in the group. 80 of us were on the river and were splashing each other and causing much mayhem as we paddled our way around. I do have to say that I was instigating much of this and it was way too much fun. There were those of us who were raised on Star Trek and the entire time we were attacking each other we were using terms like Phasers and Klingon Warbirds and Borg cubes and the like. Even ejecting the warp core was tried when we got stuck in a little eddy. Basically that entailed more paddling and yelling. By the time that we were finished, this activity which had been billed as a fun afternoon activity to see the river and get some sun, turned into a geek filled war. I was not disappointed in the least bit. The only problem was transportation back to Ein Gev. We only had one bus that held 48n people and we had 80. So on the way there we naturally had 2 bus loads, but that took time. So on the way back, we had one bus load. Nobody was left behind, and it was the bus drivers Idea. He only asked that we keep the curtains on the windows closed…. But enough with that.

On Saturday we went to Church in the Tiberias Branch house. I have to say that this little branch has one of the best places to me that there ever was. It is in a refurbished villa that is built high on a hill with a stunning view of the Sea of Galilee from every room. I thought that overlooking the Old City was bad for church, but this trumps it for sure. It was amazing.

Then for our next field trip we went and toured the Jezreel Valley. We went to Mt. Tabor where the transfiguration is thought to have happened, a few old synagogues and some natural spring swimming holes. At the Chruch of the Transfiguration atop Mt. Tabor, we sang some hymns and while we were singing this preacher from some church was there making a documentary about the holy land came into the church. He was from a southern Baptist Mega Church (and I can suspect that some of his sermons have some Anti-Mormon elements to them) and immediately told the camera man to record us singing. I don’t think he realized that he was recording a big group of Mormons singing about Christ. I think that if he ever found that out he would not tell anybody. It would just cause a little contention amongst your followers if one week you tell them that Mormons aren’t Christian and then show them a video of a group of them singing, in a church commemorating the transfiguration of Christ, the hymn All Creatures of our God and King, and I believe in Christ.

Next we went to this Synagogue called Bet Alpha, where there is the Epitome of low budget minded redecorating. The Mosaics on the floor of this 3rd century Synagogue were, well childish. I could have done a mosaic with similar quality. It was funny. But what was even better is that we went to Sephoris, which is another Synagogue that has the Mosaic that Bet Alpha tried and failed to copy on its floors. Oh low budget rip-offs. It almost made me feel like I was in China again with people trying to sell me Armani that REALLY wasn’t. But it goes to show that even almost 2000 years ago, people were still trying and failing to imitate nice stuff.
Also we saw this boat that was from the 1st century that was found in the mud of the Sea of Galilee. It was so cool because when they found it they had to carefully dig it up and carefully encase it in GreatStuff and then soak and treat it in this poly urethane bath for 9 months so that all the wood fibers would be filled and strengthened with plastic because after 2000 years, the wood wasn’t holding its form for too well. But it was cool to see this boat that was around at the time of Christ and was like the boats that Peter would have fished in and Christ would have preached out of. But the coolest part of the day was when we went swimming in these pools that were fed by natural springs. They were warm and clear and it was amazing. I never would have thought I would have seen something like that. They were pretty good sized pools and the area around them definitely didn’t look anything special that is for sure.

Then we went to the Upper Galilee to the Ancient City of Dan which is in this lush area where there and hundreds of springs that just pop out of the ground everywhere. Just north of Dan there is a nice plain area that has the borders of Syria, Lebanon and Israel all meeting, and then you go down this small hill and BAM! Massive river forming from all the springs. It was amazing to see, and it made sense as to why all 3 countries had fought major battles over Dan. Fresh water really does rule to world. Then we continued on to Caesarea Philippi where Christ talked to Peter and More springs came out the cliff walls, and then went down to Banias waterfalls where the water from Caesarea Philippi flows down to the Jordan river. I have to say that this area was absolutely amazing. It was so green and there was so much water. I was in Heaven for sure. But then we got to go up to Nimrod’s castle. This castle was built around the time of the crusaders and we got to go and frolic all over this thing. It is situated really high up on this mountain peak and has steep sides. Perfect for a castle/fortress. But I have to say that the best part was the English translation on the signs. The 2 best ones were “ Danger :Abyss” which was on a sigh next to a steep drop off, and a sign explaining a tower. It said that it was a great octagonal tower, but it only had 7 sides. I love translations of signs because there are so many priceless photo moments.
Then we also went and stopped by Akko which was a great port at the time of the Crusaders and had some amazing architecture and Templar remains. It was really well preserved and gave a really cool glimpse into how life was for the Templar knights at the time. While we were out on this breakwater talking about the sieges that happened and lead to the destruction of Akko a few hundred years ago by the Muslims, we heard air raid sirens coming from Haifa which is across the bay and heard REALLY large explosions. We could feel the shockwaves and I was a little worried, but nobody else cared. Our teacher just kept in lecturing about battles and the people on the warf just kept in doing what they were doing. This raises a poignant question: WHAT IN GOOD GRAVY GOES ON EVERYDAY IN THIS COUNTRY TO CAUSE THE PEOPLE TO DISREGARD AIR RAID SIRENS AND MASSIVE EXPLOSIONS???!!! I guess I’ll never have an answer to that.

The next day we left the Galilee and dove to some more Old cities ( I have to say we are all a little sick of ruins around here)and ended up seeing some amazing things. There were the Mosaics at Sephoris that were stunning. Then we went to Mt. Carmel and talked about Elijah defeating the priests of Baal, and then the Baha’i Gardens. I have to say that I have never heard of the Baha’i before I saw the gardens that they made in Haifa. There are 18 terraces that go up this hill and they are BEAUTIFUL!! The Baha’i are a religion that has about 7 million followers around the world and are all about world harmony, world peace, a world language, and a world government. They also believe the tenants of every religion out there. Weird if you ask me, but I guess whatever floats your boat. Sure makes life easier if you believe in everything I guess. But man can they garden. After that we drove back to the Jerusalem Center along the coast of the Mediterranean.

This trip was amazing. I have to say that it is up there with my mission in terms of spirituality. I think that my testimony of Jesus Christ grew more here than any other place in my life. I think it was because I went with a specific question and I was on a quest for knowledge. I wanted to learn something and to really know that Jesus is the Christ and that this church is His Church with His living prophets. It amazes me how Christ and God the Father will answer your prayer and give you the answers when you are ready for them. I have to say that things will probably never be the same for me when it comes to my testimony, and that is exactly what I wanted. I had such a strong impression that Christ did walk on that lake and that he really did die on the cross, and most importantly he suffered for everything that I have done and will do. Going to the Galilee was a major turning point in my spiritual growth and I will never forget that. People may ask how going to a place that is all about Christ would not only strengthen my testimony of Christ (obvious answer) but my faith in Joseph Smith and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints as well. But those things are inseparably connected, and that is really what I learned the most while being here. Man I love this place.

Epic adventure in Jerusalem

2010-03-12T07:54:00.000-07:00

So this is going to be epic. There has been a lot that has gone on this week. I was going to put pictures on but blogger is all messed up. Sorry. But to begin with let’s start with the semi exciting things and work our way up. As many of you know I applied for the summer internship at KMC. Well I got an interview and it went pretty well. It was weird to be on the phone but hopefully things will work out. I mean who can turn down this face, I mean voice…….? When the lady who was interviewing me started describing what would be going on I about died of excitement! Not only will I be able to go and work with doctors as a CNA type person, but I will also be able to follow patients through the entire process. From the time they enter the ER, to assessment, and if there is surgery or something else needed, then that too. I am so excited for that! I will be seeing surgeries and going to the Cath Lab and all that sweet stuff. I am hoping and praying that I get this job, because it will be awesome!

But to be able to get to that point, I have to be able to get through school. But the fantastic thing is that finals are over for 6 of my classes! 6! That is a wonderful feeling. There was a lot of cramming and everything else, but I think that I will come out pretty good. In field trips and Arabic, those finals were a piece of cake. A little cram sess right before the final and smooth sailing. Now Judaism, Old Testament and Islam on the other hand were not so easy. Ok let’s be frank, I about died. Judaism was pretty straight forward but hard. Same with Old Testament. But Islam…. Not so much. I love the teacher but the teaching style of the Arab culture is different and the other students here can be epically whinny. That never helps any situation. I feel that I studied everything that I could and now we will just have to wait for the grades to show up. But now I don’t care because I’M DONE!! Ah…. What a relief.

Now that the not so interesting stuff is behind us, let’s move on the real reason that I am half way around the world. The Israeli experience. And how could this experience be complete without some rioting, bonfire-ing in the middle of the street at the lower gate entrance and overall mayhem by the not so happy Palestinian people. It all started out because there are there heritage sites that are in the West Bank that the Israeli government has made into National Heritage Sites. These sites are in Palestinian controlled areas and this is making the local people wonder what is going to happen in the peace process, which as you could probably tell, is losing to a snail with a limp. But both sides keep saying that they are going to restart negotiations. Right. I will believe that when I see it. But until then I will enjoy the sight of tear gas from the Temple Mount are and bonfires at various locations around the area. Now for the mothers that are reading this. Take a deep breath, put down the phone, and RELAX! There are reasons that as missionaries we didn’t tell you things. Well now just understand that there are trained security people who watch everything and make sure that we are safe. They didn’t let us go roast marshmallows on the tire/garbage/asphalt bonfire and the old city was off limits to limits. But it sure was cool to watch, that’s for sure.

The only problem is that the Israelis decided to poke the Palestinian’s buttons at a very inconvenient time. It was the day that we finished all our finals and we were itching to get out. So we went to West Jerusalem instead. We took taxis there and probably had WAY too much fun. We wandered around and got some sweet deals on pastries and fruit because all the Jewish shops were in a hurry to close before the Sabbath started at 5:19 pm. They publish it in the papers here, and there are men who are all dressed up in their traditional gowns with the big furry hats that come and blow horns telling everybody to close shop for the Sabbath. We called them the Sabbath police. Agency?? But anyways…. After that we went and found this sweet park in west Jerusalem. Yeah I know we are in our 20’s, but that sure didn’t stop us from having the time of our lives. If you remember me talking about the spinny thing that was at the King David Hotel, well there were 3 of them here. So the natural thing to do is to get spinning as fast as you can, stop in and try and run. Well that didn’t work out so hot for me. I didn’t make it to the finish line. I sure thought I was making really good progress, but that was until I tripped over my foot that for some strange reason decided to be in the wrong place. Weird. I’m still trying to figure out why that happened. So then we decided that all 4 of us that were there needed to get on it and video ourselves spinning REALLY fast. Well that takes a while to get the cameras working, get the footage that you want. Capture the great faces that everybody is making. Take a few more pictures for good measure, because you are trying to fight the bar digging into your back and the laws of physics that are suggesting with a vengeance that you NEED to be about 40 feet from where you are currently. Immediately.

Well while this is happening, the delicious chocolate croissants that I had to buy 40 of because they were only 10 shekels (about $2.50), and the strawberries that were a half kilo for 6 Shekels (less than $2), start doing a tango. In my stomach. And they have the great idea that the party should be continued up the esophagus and on to the spinny thing. I disagreed. So we stopped the spinning and I commenced trying to stand up. Yeah, didn’t work. So I resorted to crawling off the toy made for 5 year olds and lying on the ground, having a very serious conversation with tangoing croissants and strawberries in hopes of convincing them to stay in my stomach. Eventually I won the war, but there were a few rebel rousers who won a small battle, but I immediately put them back in their rightful place, my stomach, with the help of their unhappy dance floor, my esophagus. And mind you there are 2 mothers with their children who are sitting on the bench next to the play area taking pictures. I really wonder what they think of American college students now…
After that a large group of other JC peeps showed up at the park by random chance. They were escaping the center like us and didn’t care where they were, as long as it was out. So we naturally had to do more random stuff with the large group that was now available, and that degenerated to playing fugitive on foot. It was epic. There were quite a few people who were wondering what these weird people were doing while hiding behind random things with a big smile, and they taking off after some other random person. Mind you, laughing the entire time. Again, thoughts on American College students?? After we got done with the antics and got back to the center, we had dinner and watched the bonfire from the balcony overlooking the road below. Then we were treated to something truly amazing.

Then that night we had the privilege of having a private organ recital by the organist of the Jerusalem Center. His name is Walter Whipple and it was amazing. He played Bach and some Mendelssohn and it was a privilege to be able to hear him play the organ. For all y'all that don't know, the organ at the JC is the largest in the country of Israel and it is a phenomenal instrument. And the fact that as we listened to him play we were able to look out over the old city and the lights if the night. It was such an experience to be able to hear great music and be sitting in this great concert hall. We really are spoiled here at the JC. It was cool to be able to look out over the city that just a few days ago was fighting and making a tire bonfire in the middle of the street at the bottom of the center. In my mind I think that one day this city will actually be like I felt it was when I was looking at it from the JC while listening to beautiful organ music.

Another exciting development here is the new kitchen! At the end of last semester they tore out the old kitchen and serving area and started to put a new one in. They started this because they decided to hire a kitchen staff and needed to make a small change so that everything would be up to code. Well a small change turned into a complete renovation and remodel. When we got here they had taken some of the serving equipment and put it in the dining area. To us this seemed normal because we didn’t know anything different. One thing that I have never been able to do is to complain about the food. It has been so good all the time. Well now that we have the new kitchen and serving area, the food is so much better. It really is like a 5 start restaurant here. It is a bad thing because I love all the food and I try to not eat too much. But I am losing that battle. Oh well. It sure is good.
We also went to the Zoo here. It was so awesome. Basically we acted like we were 5 and having way too much fun. But that is what a zoo does. We saw so many sweet animals, but the highlight was playing in the children’s area. We climbed all over the mosaic animals that were huge and rolled down this hill. I relished my childhood, and it was epic. The best part of the day was when I finished rolling down the hill and looked up. I was staring across this path and there was this old couple that was laughing their heads off. It really was epic and amazing.

Then on Monday we went to Bethlehem. That was sweet. We had lunch in a Bedouin tent restaurant and it was amazing! There was hummus and pitas and other toppings and lamb sausage and roasted chicken and baklava for dessert. I was oh so happy. And they had Wi-Fi so things were fantastic! We went and walked around the old city of Bethlehem and went into the church of the Nativity. That is a really cool building. The actual building is 6th century, the roof is 15th century, and they had found floors under the existing floor that was the original floor that was installed when Queen Hellen, Constantine’s mommy, had the church built on the spot where Christ was born. It was amazing. Just the fact that it has been there for that long was crazy. But what was even more nuts were the crowds of people that were there. Right now for the astute observers, it is lent and the Passover season. This equals mass amounts of tourists. There are cruises that dock in Tel Aviv and drive people to the holy sites of the area. So right as we got in line, a huge ship full of people got in line behind us. It was lucky that we got there when we did or we would still be there waiting today. We went down to the cave where Christ was supposedly born and then sang some Christmas songs in the courtyard. It was amazing. The spirit there was something so strong. Then we went to the Milk Grotto church. This is probably the hokiest church in the holy land. Supposedly, with lots of skepticism, is where Mary spilt milk while feeding Christ before they fled to Egypt. Interesting. I wonder who documented that, since she was probably not publicizing feedings like they do to at the zoo to the Sheppards. But anyways, moving on.

Then we started our trek home. Needless to say, the trip that took 25 minutes to do while traveling to Bethlehem, took 2 hours to get back because of the checkpoint at the wall. This wall is a bunch of baloney. One of the guys here thinks that the Israeli Knesset (the congress) has a POTP committee. Piss Off The Palestinians. They take a reasonable idea of keeping terrorists out with a wall, warranted, and decided how they can take as much land and invite more suicide bombings and riots by making stupid rules. Oh well. This was all very evident in the tour that we had of Bethlehem University earlier in the day. We had a Q&A session with some of the students and there was a girl who was from Jerusalem that goes to BU for school every day. So she has to go through that checkpoint, which doesn’t always happen if the Soldier had some bad coffee in the morning or woke up on the wrong side of the bed. And also the ID card that she has to have because she is Palestinian, says that she has no nationality. This is because she is Palestinian and lives in Jerusalem, not the West Bank. So for traveling abroad, she has a Jordanian passport. Explain that to me.

Then on Tuesday we went Hell. It was quite beautiful and pleasant. It had some nice flowers and there was a nice breeze blowing through the area. The sun was shining and the birds were singing and the sheep were grazing. It was quite an enjoyable afternoon if you ask me. I think I will go back soon. Now if you think that I am some very strange person who is demented, I would understand why. The Hinnom Valley is on the south side of Jerusalem and it is where they sacrificed children to the Pagan god Molech. It is also where there was a constant fire burning during the time of Christ. He referred to it as the fire and brimstone. It was something that the people of the city could easily relate to, and understand that sin was something that was to be avoided. I would think about being a good person if I looked out my window and saw a burning valley, and Christ said that I would end up there. Good deterrent if you ask me.

Then on bible theme we went to Neot Kadumim which is a Bible Preserve. They have planted the plants that are in the bible and have tried to recreate a lot of the things that are in the bible. We looked at a cistern and tried to herd sheep, crushed Hyssop into Oregano powder by hand, made pita bread over a fire and watched a Jewish scribe copy some of the Torah. It was so much fun. I was probably one of my favorite field trips so far. But the run thing is that we go to the Galilee this Monday! And we are going to be there for 10 days. We are going to go to all the sites that are there and we get to have bonfires on the beach, swim in the Sea of Galilee, and most importantly, we get to be at the place where Jesus spent most of his ministry. It is going to be an amazing experience and I can’t wait. Y’all may or may not get any pictures till I get back, but then again I haven’t been, well, very regular with blogging thus far. So you should just expect some random blog coming far from when I say that it will be posted.
I told you this would be long. But I hope that you enjoyed!

Purim and Herodian Jerusalem

2010-03-01T11:01:00.000-07:00

So these past few weeks have been awesome. I’ll start with last night. So here in Israel they have a holiday called Purim. It is like Halloween in the sense that you dress up, but not like Halloween in the sense that it’s not supposed to be scary. So last night about 70 of us students went to a Purim dance party that was put on by this guy who taught us Israeli Folk Dances. (SIDE NOTE: A few days ago we had an Israeli Folk Dance teacher come and taught us folk dances, since that is what a Folk Dance Teacher does. Well needed less to say, I wasn’t very good, but I knew that before I ever stepped into the room. At first we just learned some of the usual Israeli dances. They were all dances that were done in a circle holding hands with the people that are next to you doing some crazy steps that probably aren’t that crazy, but that is beside the point. There was much disaster with 90 people in a circle trying to do new steps. But we persevered and had a good time. Then he changed it up. We did the Macarena, the twist (and we twisted for the entire song. I don’t think that I have ever twisted for an entire song, and it wasn’t easy), some saucy Latin square dance thing, and a little Israeli rip off Virginia Reel. It was over all awesome. END SIDE NOTE.) When we arrived, we were most definitely the majority and by far the youngest. By a long shot. Most people were adults where in their 50’s it looked like. I think they were a bit wary of us at the beginning, but who wouldn’t be in that situation. You expect a dance party with a bunch of people that you know, who know the dances, but instead you get all your friends and 70 Colleges students from America who don’t know the dances. But it was awesome. But what was interesting were the costumes that the Israeli people wore. All of us had a theme to what we were. We had Zombies, people that had been struck by lightning, Ryan Seacrest (me, I know lame, but when you have a limited wardrobe), Egyptians and the like. The Israelis…. well they had wigs and weird hats and outfits that were just, weird. But that just made it even better. Seeing people that were the same age as my parents, partially intoxicated, in very strange outfits, and still dancing better than me always makes for an interesting night.

The other day we went on another field trip to the Western Wall tunnel. It was super cool because the Western Wall that everybody is very familiar with is about 40 feet above the base. This is because after the Jews were kicked out by the Romans, the Muslims wanted to have their houses at the same level as the holy places. So they built a whole bunch of arches and built level after level on top of each other to raise the level of the city up. So the Tunnel tour takes you down into these caverns of arches and looked at the part of the wall that is underground. It is really interesting because the archeologists are constantly finding new things and making the Muslims mad at the same time. But it is understandable because the Jews, where some openly admit to wanting to build a third temple, are digging right next to the temple mount where the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosque are located. The Muslims are a bit worried about those because the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosque are located on the same place that the temple was, and is supposed to be rebuilt. I’m pretty sure you can see the problem. What was cool was to see how Herod made this massive wall! These stones were huge! There is one that is 15 feet thick, 6 feet tall and 40ish feet long. I can’t imagine trying to move that behemoth into place, but they did and 2000 years ago. After that we went and saw the excavations on the south side of the Temple mount. Now If you will turn with me to the picture section of the most recent addition of the Holy Bible published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and look at the picture of the Herodian Temple stairs. Compare(picts should be up soon :)). I do have to say that this picture was about the only one that I REALLY wanted. And now I have it. How convenient. We also looked at the streets that were smashed by the Romans as they shoved the stones off the top of the temple mount to the street below. Those were some massive stones that made a BIG dent in the road. Talk about a pothole. It was really cool to see the architecture that Herod used and how fanatical he was about the aesthetics of his buildings.Every stone had a border around it, and when the wall met up with the existing mountain, he made it look like it was part of the wall. Kinda eccentric if you ask me.

Then the other day we went under the center. I have to say that it wasn’t exactly what I was thinking but it was pretty cool to see how the building was built. There are about 400 pillars that the building is raised up on and supported by. So needless to say, when certain prophesied events start to happen and there is a SMALL amount of shaking in the general Mount of Olives area, where the center is built, it will sill be standing and in good shape. Makes me feel a lot better about things. But along with that I wrote my name on the wall at the bottom where all the other students from past semesters have written their names. It was cool because the oldest one that I saw was from ’93.

But one thing that I am happy about is that I have been able to go running a lot lately. The one drawback is that there is only one route that we can go running on. The reason why… beats me. I can go walking around wherever I want and meet people, but I have to run on the same path all the time? I don’t make the rules, and when it comes right down to it, I am happy that I get to go running at all. There are a few of us that go and they kill me! Some days I am amazed that I don’t die before we finish. 5 miles in 34 minutes is pushing the bounds of insanity. At least in my book they are.

But one really need thing that has been happening here is the rain. It has been raining for 3 days and just keeps going. Now I’m not complaining because heaven knows this area needs it. It is just strange how it comes in waves and just keeps coming. And this is no Seattle persistent rain. No, this is hard. It comes in horizontal sheets, and then stops, looks like it is going to clear up, and then WHAM! More rain. I personally hope that it keeps coming, because it keeps me from going outside when I should be studying for finals that start tomorrow. But the bright side is that once this week is over, it is 2 months of 2 classes and lots of Field trips. Huzzah! But until then I will be sequestering myself inside the JC and studying my brains out. But I hear that the Muslims and Jews are throwing rocks at each other again, so maybe being inside really isn’t the worst thing.

Well... love y’all!

Don't Worry pictures will be coming soon.

The life of a definitely not starving student in Jerusalem

2010-02-21T01:15:00.000-07:00

Well things are great here in sunny, warm Jerusalem. We have a light breeze with clear skies, warm temperatures, and a light breeze. I am a really big fan of the warm light breeze here. It is so refreshing. It lightly wafts over my slightly tanned arms, is such a relaxing way. It does get quite annoying when this light breeze gently turns the pages of the book that I am reading while overlooking the Old city of Jerusalem from my balcony, while out side in the warm, bright sunshine, working on my tan and enjoying the nice breeze. But I will live, I guess.
Class is winding down here. Can you believe that I have 4 finals next week, and still have almost 2 months left here. I think it is truly glorious if you ask me. Now things have been a bit, well crazy with all the reading and work that I have to do, and the midterms that have to be done the week before the final. but I think that I will live. The light breeze really helps.

So for all the things that have happened since the last time that I blogged. Well there has been a lot. We had an awesome time traipsing through Hezekiah's Tunnel, getting all wet and just having an overall awesome time. My real question is how in earth did those guys chisel all that out. I mean imagine this. The rich, slightly stressed with the fear of getting killed King Hezekiah tells you and some of your friends, or maybe not so good friends that you are going to bore a hole under your basement so that the water can flow from one side of the city to the other. Now I would just think that a good Idea would have been to invent the electric pump. Chiseling through all the rock while some group of guys you probably don't fancy much are chiseling their way toward you from the other side of town and you are supposed to meet in the middle. Now that isn't that big of a deal in theory. You start on opposite sides and just go to work, hacking at the rock directly in front of your face until you happen to put a chisel in your neighbor's face because you weren't expecting the solid limestone to all of the sudden have a cavern with a guy and a chisel in it. Or worse, you could be the guy with the chisel. But for our stories sake, your not. That would just make a bad ending to a story. " And Hagath, the hero of our story, toiled away, inhaling copious amount of dust and other stuff, while carving out the 1,700 foot long tunnel under his basement. He slaved away for months, hoping his food storage wouldn't end up on top of his head, hauling rocks out of a hole, that in retrospect he probably should have made a bit larger than the width of his body and a smidge taller, when he heard the long awaited sound of Edgar, his may or may not be worst enemy, chiseling away, only feet, or cubits to fit in the time period, away. When all of the sudden, BAM!, chisel in the face." Yeah that would have been a really bad story. But I think that you get the picture. I still don't get how they were able to meet up. You can obviously tell that there wasn't much sophisticated technology at work here. Some times it is really big and tall, and others it is small and I had to crouch to get through. And then there are all these weird turns and dead ends. Somebody spent a week going in the wrong direction, which you might think would be far, but it's not. Only like 5 feet, But how do you think he felt? I know I wouldn't be too happy.

So after our sweet dark tunnel adventure, we played in some pools that were a couple thousand years old, and then headed back home. cuz I was wet, and in jeans. And to think, the teachers said that we could stay in the old city after we were done.... right. I don't usually wish for chaffing, and wet jeans in a dusty dirty place. But that's just me, I don't know about anybody else, but there were 81 other people that had the same idea as me. And to think the teachers were surprised when we all said we didn't want stay. Oh well.

Well other than that I have just been doing school and all that that entails. Lots of reading and writing stuff, but it is interesting. I'll have to take some time when I get back to post all my feelings about the subjects of school. I don't think anybody here would be to happy with my thoughts on either side's actions here in this breezy warm land.

SO picture this. An old, steeped in history, magnificent, once partially blown up hotel, in a city ripe with stories and amazing things that people all over the world dream of seeing. And what do three 20 something college students do? Naturally play in the play ground. What else were you thinking we would do? I mean lets be serious. All though the merry-go-round was the merry-go-round of death. Yeah kids flying off is a bad thing. I understand. Broken arms, cerebral hemorrhaging, and the possibility of death are things to be avoided. But making a merry-go-round like the teacups at Disneyland where you turn the spinny part by applying directional force to the stationary wheel in the middle, thus slicing your spine on the smallish metal ring that is supplied as a backrest, as you spin faster and faster, still almost getting throw out of said spinny thing, was probably not the best idea. But then again I think they were thinking that 4 year olds would be doing the spinning, not college students that lost all sense of maturity when a cheap playground with no supervision was placed in front of them. But that is a minor detail really.

After that, we went across the street to the YMCA to the bell tower. It is a really cool tower. It is old, but that really doesn't mean much when the city that it overlooks is a bajillion years old. But it is still oldish. But the cool thing about the bell tower is the bells, naturally. Up in the top, where bells usually go, are 34 bells, attached to a bell playing thing called a clarion. It is kinda like a piano but not. Look at the other picture. It will explain better. The man that plays the organ at the center, plays the clarion on sundays. And because he is supercool, he lets the students come and play with him. So naturally since we can't do any proselytizing in Jerusalem, we play hymns so the entire city can hear it. We are so mischievous...

Another cool thing to look forward to in later posts, is the guided tour of the church of the Holy Seplecure that will be happening tomorrow. I totally finagled this by striking up a conversation with a Franciscan Priest that works at the church. Turns out his brother owns Azteca in Spokane. Ironic huh. Especially because the priest was from Guadalajara, Mexico, and now is in Jerusalem. But whatever the ironic circumstances, I snagged us a tour. I am stoked! This place is so steeped in history, and stories, that you could live here your entire life and not know them all. And I only have 2 months left!

Well being in Israel always affords itself to fun things. So Purin stated this last week, which is where people dress up like Halloween, but I don't know details so you'll have to Google it yourself. But needless to say there was a little parade where people were playing drums and dancing in the Jews quarter of the Old City. So naturally we joined in. Gotta soak up all the culture now don't I. So while the parade had take a reprieve from its meandering course so that we could dance with them. Along came a Bar Mitzvah procession. They were playing songs and doing their fair share of dancing. So when you get to groups that are dancing, and they meet up, you get exponentially more dancing. Never a bad thing. Especially when you are accompanied by some drums and a Clarinet. Need less to say it was awesome. You can look at the pictures on my picasaweb page. But here is a video. We followed it down to the wailing wall. There was some Irony about the procession, because the party was effectively stopped so that they could go through security. Ironic if you ask me. So here it is.

Well the video wouldn't load, so I put it on Facebook and gave y'all a picture instead.

Here is the link:

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=316189387731

Till next time! and dont die, that would be awkward.

Yad Vashem, Gethsemane Ect

2010-02-10T03:01:00.000-07:00

Ok so let me get started. Things around here have been so much fun. I absolutely love it. But that was to be expected. There have been alot of things going on. Tests, sightseeing, field trips, mustache growing, and various other things.
First with the test, they happened. I dont want to dwell on the things that aren't any different that what happens at BYU. So there ya go. I actually do squeeze in some school work every once in a while.

One of the things that I love about being here is that I am within walking distance to so many amazing sacred spaces. One of my Growing favorites is the Garden of Gethsemane. It is a 10 minute walk down the hill from the JC and it is an amazing place. There is the regular Tourist place but if you go and talk to the people that work there and tell them that you are Mormon, they open up this different garden which is quiet and amazing. I have to say that I have had some amazing spiritual experiences in the place that Christ suffered for my sins. I can say that my testimony of Christ is becoming stronger and stronger and I am so excited. I really do love the spirit that this place holds.

On our next field trip we went to Yad Vashem, Which is that Holocaust Museum. That was a very interesting day. I was horrific to see the things that happened to these people at the hands of others. It really put into perspective how much power we can have over those around us. It also highlights that no matter what people believe, we are all humans. And ultimately we are all children of our Heavenly Father. It just made me think of how because of dumb diffferences, like race, color and religion to name a few, people get all angry and think that it is enough excuse to kill people and treat them in humanely. I think I would have walked away from Yad Vashem with a better feeling about humanity, if I hadn't seen oppression and a big cement wall on the drive back to the center. I don't know when it became ok to beat up other people, because your grandma was beat up as a child. But obviously there are enough people in this part of the world that have that thinking. But enough with that.

The Next field trip that we went on was the Sephelah field trip. Sephelah means the lower hills. We traveled around to all the important valleys and the archeological sites that were there. It was cool to see how people built things in the past and how much time it took! I was thinking as we were walking up this path into the city of Lacish, how much time things took. For example, the city of Lacish was under seige for 3 months. You would think in todays terms that nothing would be left. Well you'd be wrong. All the Assyrians got accomplished was building a ramp out of rubble. Ok I know that there is more to it than that, they were getting rock thrown at then and shot every once in a while, but in 3 months we could wipe out entire cities and countries. Oh wait, we could do that in about 1 second, but that is beside the point. As I was walking up this ancient marvel that took along time for the Assyrians to destroy, I couldn't help but think that they had just opened the Burj Khalifa in Dubai which is half a mile tall and has million of square feet of space, and that only took a few years to build. I guess we have come along way in a couple thousand years.

Well after that we visited some other sites, and then we got to the good stuff. We first went out and started to throw rock with a sling like David did to kill Goliath. That was sweet. but then we got to the good stuff. We went into some caves called Micah Caves. I have no idea who carved these things out or why, but it was awesome. You enter through this really small opening that you have to crawl through to get in. And then you have to clamber down this rickety ladder to get into this chamber. I thought that this was all there was, and that was cool enough. But boy was I wrong. As you can see from the picture above, I found a little hole to have some fun in. We saw this little opening so we decided to explore what was inside. We had to lay flat and kinda shimmy up into this other cavern that was there. and then that split into tons of different offshoots that had other really small tunnels that opened up into larger rooms. Some of the rooms looked like they had been lived in and there were things carved into the walls that looked like seats and toilets. And naturally we had to climb in. But some of these were barely big enough for me to fit, even when I would stretch my arms above my head and shimmy in. So we were in there for a good 45 minutes and it got REALLY hot as you can expect. but it was so worth it. I would go and do it again in a heart beat because I could spend hours in there. But my real question is who in their right mind carved these things out. Because it was not natural for sure. It was all carved and carried out. I think I would have died because it was so small and confined. And think, If you lived in there you would die because you go to the bathroom once and... well I think I would rather be dead than live in there for sure. It was probably one of the best excursions yet. I was in love.

Well I hope that y'all are are having a fantastic time, because I sure am! love y'all!

And yes I do have a mustache.

Mustache Militia

2010-02-09T14:55:00.000-07:00

Y'all need to read this. It is the blog of my room mate here in Jerusalem. And yes. it does apply to me. :)

Jordan Mulford's Blog

EGYPT!!!

2010-01-31T00:10:00.000-07:00

So Egypt was amazing. That is about all that I can say about that.

Ok…. I guess I’ll add a LITTLE bit more

We left on Friday the 22^nd at 6am. Way too early for my liking, but I still managed to drag myself onto the bus. It was a real trial, going to Egypt and all. So we left and the first day we drove to the ancient site of Beersheva. It was cool and old. That was an overwhelming theme of this trip. OId. Next we drove to the desert of Zin and thought of Hagar and Ishmael wandering around that area. Needless to say, that would not be my top vacation pick. The cool thing was that right before we left on our trip it had rained a ton. It was the first rain in 4 years in that part of the world and it POURED!! They got over 4 inches or rain so there was actually water in the Wadis( Usually dry riverbeds.) It was a sight to behold. We continued on until we got to Yotova. Yotova is a Kibbutz which is a community where the people all work for the good of the community and nobody owns anything. It is a super socialist community, but what is cool is that they have this really big dairy and they process everything there. That and Date Palms are the major source of work in the community. The Idea is that everybody works doing different jobs and each year they get a stipend for the entire year for luxury items. It is pretty cool, but the greatest thing is the milk products that come from there. Now nothing will beat Blue Bell Ice Cream, but this comes in a close second. Next we drove to another Kibbutz by Elot and stayed the night. It was actually really nice.

The next morning we got up really early again( another theme of the trip) and crossed the border between Egypt and Israel. It wasn’t that hard to leave. The Egyptians like people to come to their country. Its not as free as Mexico, but close. We then started our trip across the Sinai. And there was actually a lot of water in the Sinai. It was cool to see because it is not normal, as you could have probably deduced. We drove and drove and drove until we reached Cairo that night. We checked into our hotel and then went and watched the Sound and Light show. Can I say Cheesy! I think that somebody who went in the 70’s would have seen the exact same quote. It reminded me of Star Trek.

The next morning we went to the Pyramids. And yes, they are bigger then you think they are. IT WAS SWEET!! We went inside the Pyramid if Khufu. It is the middle one. It was really cool but the tunnel was really small. I feel bad for anybody who was claustrophobic. I had to duck the entire passage until we got to the actual chamber which was really large. It was large by itself and to think that there were 3 million MASSIVE stones over and around me. I took solace in the fact that they had been there for a few thousand years, and hopefully they would last another hour. On our way out I was walking and there were a bunch of girls from the group that were in the same area walking back to the bus. There were other guys, they weren’t just following me mom. But the Local trying to sell me stuff said,” Ooh 9 wives. You are a brave man.” Needless to say I had to get a picture with my newly acquired wives.

Next we went to the papyrus museum/ shop thing and I did get sucked into spending $20. But it was cool. The we went and looked at the step pyramid. This is the oldest Pyramid and the Bedouins there are PUSHY! They would jump in your picture right as you were going to take it and then try and get you to pay for their mug. I kept asking them why I wanted their picture and they said “ because were Egyptian!” I’m still wondering what the selling point was. I might be wondering forever. But of course there was this old couple for the states that was there the same time that we were and they were suckers. They got all dressed up and took a picture with some creepy old Egyptian guy, and they the guy wanted $20 from them. It was funny because they large American guy gave him some dumbfounded look, but the Egyptian was persistent. Finally the American guy gave him $5, but the Egyptian wasn’t satisfied. He wanted $20. The American finally turned around and said “ I’m and American. We’re cheap!” The Bedouin looked shocked and walked away. Can’t fight the truth when ya hear it I guess. After that we got on the bus and drove to the Airport to fly to Luxor. Needless to say we were late getting there and then security took forever. I was carrying one of the medical bags because I am a bus doctor, and there were scissors in there. I got past the first security checkpoint with no fanfare. It might have had to do with the fact that the security agent was texting while the bags went through. That might have had something to do with it but I am not quite sure. It is just a hunch. Well by the time I got stopped by the second wave of security at the gate, the plane was supposed to be taking off, and half of the passengers were in line behind me. I pulled out the scissors and showed them to the security guy and told him I was the doctor and they were medical scissors. He still didn’t like it. So I just waited there and held up the entire line. After 2 minutes of him knocking things around in his head while looking at these large sharp pointed scissors, he handed them back to me and let me go. It reaffirmed to me that the Egyptians could really care less about security. We got to Luxor and drove to the Hotel and BOY HOWDY it was SWEET! It is by far the nicest hotel that I have ever been in. It is the Sheraton that is on the Nile and man it is so cool.

The next morning we got up and went to the valley of the kings and Hatshepsut’s Temple. It was soo cool to see all the tombs that were still vividly painted after 3000 years. They could have saved themselves a lot of effort by just listening to Abraham. But I’m just sayin. We also saw King Tut’s tomb. That was cool because it is so small but had soo much stuff in it. His Mummy was in there and so was his solid gold coffin. He was one short guy and for being 18 when he died and not doing much, he sure got a lot of stuff. After that we went on a Felucca ride, which is a sail boat, down the Nile to a spot where we got to ride some camels.

It was sweet. My Camel was named George Clooney. He was pretty sweet, but he gave me some sweet bowleg and chaffing, but totally worth it. After that we had sacrament meeting by the Nile in the conference room of the Hotel. It was really cool because we had it at 6 pm our time and it was 10 am in Spokane. So last Sunday I was having church at the same time as people on the west coast. It was special. Then we went off the Souk, which is the market street. It was soo cool but CRAZY. The people there were super aggressive and would follow you around constantly. Because of that we had to be in groups of 4 and there had to be at least 1 guy. I complained a lot about that. :) It was really funny because all the shopkeepers kept saying. “3 wives, 3 problems” and they kept offering to take the troubled one and stuff like that. After a while I kept wondering who was the dumb American who said that to one of them, because they certainly couldn’t think of any original heckles, or merchandise for that matter. But I do have to say that if you want to get a buzz and feel like you are on a sweet rollercoaster ride of adrenaline, go shopping in Luxor.

The next day we rode the river down to the Temple of Karnak. That place was so cool. Everything there is massive. It would make any Texan jealous. Everything from the Columns to the Obelisks to the manmade lake were massive. And to think that they did it all by hand. What was Ironic was that the people doing the restoration were using a huge construction crane to do the job that the Egyptians did with no mechanical help. Amazing. Then we went on a horse drawn carriage ride to the temple of Luxor. Again that was so cool. The Egyptians were amazing. After that we went back to the Souk, because we were a glutton punishment I guess. After that we went back to the Hotel got ready to board our Luxury liner back to Cairo.

Ok so I hope you caught the sarcasm there. This train ride put Amtrak up on a pedestal and made it seem like the best way to travel. This train was loud and smoky and the food was … not food. I think those are all the terrifying memories that I want to dig up right now. Oh yeah, and above the toilet there was a sign saying not to flush while stopped in the station. That would be because there is no such thing as storage tanks on these trains. I guess you really wouldn’t want to sleep in-between the rails in Egypt. :( Then we were woken up at 4 am to get another sketchy meal, and for the train to arrive on time in Cairo at 5 am. Then the adventure of visits to old churches and synagogues and mosques on no sleep began. Needless to say I don’t remember much. That night was a great night because I was out cold at 9 pm. It was great.

The next day we went and visited the Citadel. It s a huge Islamic fortress, with a HUGE Mosque in it. It was really cool because it was so huge and old. After that we got on the bus to leave, and after all the good food that we ate, barring fresh fruit and the local water, we had KFC. I don’t like KFC in the states, so who thought that I would like it in sketchy Egypt?! Well I ate the grease monster because I was hungry, and then my body began asking some serious questions about by sanity. My answer was a lot of Pepto, and a good hearty shut up. Needlessly it didn’t work very well. I thought I was going to die. But I didn’t thankfully. The trek across Sinai was not very enjoyable to say the least. I was so excited to get to the hotel, until we got there. I guess when you are one of the only hotels in the middle of an inhospitable desert you don’t worry about competition, or making bathrooms decent. Oh well. I was only in the room for 5 hours.

The next morning at 2 AM we got up and hiked Sinai. I wanted to get up there REALLY fast so I booked it up the mountain and got up there an hour and a half after we started. I felt so accomplished and so did the people that I was with. But we soon learned that the tops of mountains are cold, and overachievers sweat on the way up. That doesn’t make for a very good combination. But the sunrise was amazing. After that had a testimony meaning and it was amazing. Then we began the hike down the mountain. This time we took the stairs down and it took forever. I heard that the stairs were penance for the monks of the St. Katherine Monastery, and MAN, there must have been a lot of sinning! When we got done with that we had to quickly get back on the bus and start the trek back to Jerusalem. Needless to say we left at 11 am from Sinai, and got back to Jerusalem at 10:30 PM.

Well that is the excitement of Egypt in short form because I bet you already got bored with this. But you were the one that disregarded the sarcastic warning at the beginning of this massive blog and kept reading. So don’t blame me for you not being productive. I just wrote it. You read it. But I sucked you in didn’t I.

Well … till next time!

Pictures!

2010-01-18T07:09:00.000-07:00

Ok so I have uploaded some pictures. I know I know, took me long enough. Well y'all can see them by goiing to the side bar on your right and clicking on the "My Pictures" tab. Have fun looking!

The Western Wall and The Garden Tomb

2010-01-16T12:57:00.000-07:00

Well things have been fun theses last few days. I bought a sweet tunic shirt. It is awesome! But what was really cool was the bringing in of the Sabbath at the Western Wall. If anybody hasn't been there... WHAT A RIOT!! Ok Ok. When I think of Sunday I am thinking of "Reverence is more than just queitly sitting.....", and "Saturday is a special day, its a day to get ready for Sunday...." Not to the Jews! They pack the Western Wall plaza and they are singing and dancing and carrying on! Now the Ultra-Orthodox Jews are singing the Torah right next to the wall, but the not-so-Orthodox Jews, they are dancing in circles and riding on the shoulders of other people, and singing at the top of their lungs. Now just think of a rock concert where they are all singing scriptures with a alot of "Aye ya ya ya ya "'s put in there. Basically it was sweet! I put on my yamaka, and was gonna celebrate Hanaka, but I was a bit late for that. So instead I joined in, singing all these song that I really didn't know the tune (which according to the guy with the fedorah next to me, might actually make me seem more Jewish than if I could carry a tune. Needless to say, I didn't listen to what he was singing) and most definately didn't know what words I was singing. It was great to see the all the different people singing and dancing and what not, and I have never seen a more diverse group of people there. There were Ultra-Orthodox people with their Fedorahs and big furry hats and the sweet long hair by their ears , right along side the Israeli soliders in their fatigues and AK's, who are grabbing the imposter Mormon's that just bought Yamakas before they walked in, so that we didn't have to wear the AWESOME cardboard ones that are provided for the cheapskates that didn't want to spend the $2.50 for a yamaka, and started including us in the big jumping rotating circle. It was awesome. But what was even funnier is that because we had yamakas people thought that we really were Jewish.

We were standing in big group all talking and I looked back and there was this older lady whispering to her husband, saying something like "look at all the Jewish youth" while taking pictures of us. I didn't want to burst her bubble, so I just kept quiet and let her think what she wanted. Well a few minutes later this girl from our group went up to say hi and strike up a conversation, and the lady that was previously taking pictures of this group of Jewish youth (expecially this odd one that was wearing a BRIGHT green button up shirt. Wonder who that could have been....) asked where we were from. The girl said, " From BYU, were Mormon." Well I could tell this lady was a little put out because she had taken time to take some artsy pictures, and we were all imposters. If I were her I would have been thinking " Well I'm telling my friends they are Jewish!" Well then we went to the actual plaza.. so refer to what was previously written....

So that was awesome, and today was COMPLETELY different. First of all I had to give a talk in sacrament meeting, and the girls that went before me ate up alot of my time. Now you will here no complaining on my part that is for sure! I was able to take the 20 minute talk and condense in into 4 minutes. It was short sweet and directly to the point. But the best part is that everybody was almost consoling me saying that they wished that they could have heard the whole thing. I don't think that they would have been that excited after 20 mins if I was really talking. But I'll just let them think that. Now they think I am a great speaker, and have all these great insights from a 4 minute talk, and Ill never have to speak agian this semester because their are 79 other students and not near enough Sundays to fit them all in. Boo YEAH!

Well after church we went to the Garden tomb and had a tour. That was so amazing. They obviously don't know exactly where he was buried, but there is alot of compelling evidence for this place. And no matter what, the spirit was amazing. It was a total escape from the city, all though it was smack dab in the middle of the city. I just loved it. but I think that you can deduce that, and I forsee alot more experiences where I insert the phrase " I loved it" or a variation of that with the word love in it a lot for the next few months. I would just expect it. Cuz I will, promise.

Then we had a fireside tonight about the building of the Center. And that was a feat! I'll have to tell y'all later all the details, but here is a short synopsis:

Crappy hotels not good. Need Permanent place. Israelis Gov is messed up. Lots of back and forth. Pres Reagan Steps in. God inverveins.Students move in in the still of the morning. Were still here because somebody was buried in Haifa 100 years ago, but nobody was buried here. Miracle.

There ya go. Well hopefully some pictures will be up soon, but I always say that, so don't wager anything on that.

LOVE YA!!

PS. Sorry if the spelling is off. There is no Spellcheck or Word on this comp. :)

FIRST FIELD TRIP!!

2010-01-11T14:07:00.000-07:00

Well thing were fun today. We went a bunch of different overlooks of the city and learned about the significance of the area that we were at or the area that we could see. It was really cool. So here is a brief overview of the places, and when I can I will include some pictures of the places that are described!

First was the Seven Arches Overlook.

That was sweet because there was a great vantage point that showed the old city and the dome of the rock and the Golden Gate. We looked almost directly east and it was cool to see the city from the same place that Christ would have seen it many times as he would have walked over the Mount of Olives, Which is where the overlook is located. It was amazing to think about the different temples that were situated on mount Moriah, which is where the Dome of the Rock and surrounding plaza are located. Needless to say it was awesome, except the people trying to sell stuff to us and begging. SERIOUSLY!! Annoying but oh well, gotta make a living somehow. But not from me!

Second was the Augusta Victoria Complex and Tower.

Can say too many stairs! Especially because I decided last night that I was going read the stationary bike until I finished all my reading. Needless to say, that took a LONG time and I was sore. So a billion stairs were fun. But it was cool to see the area and see the pilgrimage points of the city. We then went inside and talked about all the architectural pieces of the building and what it meant. It was really cool to see how things were set up and why they did that. But what I loved the most was all the political things that were tied into the religious parts of the building. That was sweet. Oh man how corrupted religion was and still is in the world. I think that somebody needs to restores things to the way that they were before..... Oh wait..... :)

Third was the Nabi Samwil mosque

Ok so it was a nonfunctioning mosque with a Jewish Synagogue in the basement and a Cenotaph for the prophet Samuel, which was on a mountain that he probably wasn’t buried on. But there were some really cool ruins of a community that was around the mosque that wasn’t original because it had been blown to smithereens a billion times in all the peaceful times that have been in the Holy Land's History. But what was really cool was the view from the top of the Mosque/synagogue thing. It had a direct view of the ancient city of Gibeon. That was really cool to read the scriptures that talked about it and to look at it at the same time. I highly recommend it. What interesting though was the fact that we couldn't get there if we wanted to because of the Israeli/Palestinian separation wall that was in the valley. Can I just say that these people need to learn to just be friends and follow the teaching of the Gods that they say that they follow. I’m know for a fact that Allah and God say to forgive and to be kind to one another. I’ve read it in both books, and... Um... They don’t. Well Enough on that for now.

Fourth was an outlook that looked directly toward Bethlehem and the tomb of Rachel, and on the other side, the City of Jerusalem. That was really sweet because we could see the Judean Plains and the fields that the shepherds would have been in when Christ was born, and all that jazz. It was cool and we sang O Little Town of Bethlehem. Again, Highly Recommended.

Fifth was the Haas Overlook that looked directly North into the Valley of Kidron and the Mount of Olives and the Western wall ect. That was cool because we could pick out all the valleys and see a huge overview of the areas that are all important and the things that play into modern day life of people in the Holy Land, namely the New West Jerusalem and all the affluence and lack of orthodoxy of the Jews. The Old city and all that that entails. The Temple mount. The Mount of Olives/Scopus. And then off toward the west and the separation wall. And of course all the ruins that you could see and thousands of years of culture. Man there is a lot of conflict!

So that was the day and all the exciting things I have seen. Hopefully I can get some pictures up soon.

The Sweet people of the city!

2010-01-11T13:33:00.001-07:00

Well today was a great day! We don’t have class so we went and roamed the city when we should have been doing homework. Yeah I know that is not the greatest thing but I did get all my homework done. I'll explain here in a sec.

Well we left with the idea that we were going to go to the Dome of the Rock but had no map and just were going to find it. We knew where it was. I mean you can't miss it. Its big and golden. Kinda like the sun... but different. Well we left and were walking that direction and we decided to turn down this one random market street thing and we were walking up these stairs at the end and the Israeli Police stopped us. I was wonder, but not really because the police here are always setting up road blocks for no apparent reason. But then I look and the street that we were in lead right to the plaza of the Dome of the Rock! I thought that we had scored! But alas. It was a Muslim only entrance, and the plaza was closed for afternoon prayers. So we decided to wait for a little while till it opened. So while we were waiting we stopped by this Juice station thing and haggled the shop keeper to get frees squeezed pomegranate orange juice. And I am not talking he said it was fresh squeezed, he juiced it right there in front of us with this juice press thing. It was SOOOO good. I don’t know if it was worth the $2.5 I spent on 10 oz. But it sure was good. and I didn’t feel ripped off too bad because he charged a Muslim guy the same price. So after that we made it down to the security entrance to the western wall and the Wailing Wall. That was sweet. But the security was a joke. There was a metal detector and an x-ray, but the guy on tyhe x-ray machine was talking on his cell phone laughing while our stuff was going through so I dont know if he would have caught a bomb if it would have said bomb on it. But never-the-less we went through and went to the Wailing Wall and then more security so that we could get to the Dome of the Rock. Man that was awesome. Pics will come when I can get to a computer that will let me upload pictures. But it was so sweet.

So then we left and went out the muslin entrance that we went in. They obviously dont care if we leave that way. Obviously. When we were leaving. My roommate and I are kinda adventurous and so we took a turn down a dark and smallish stairway and then took another left and ended up in this room place. We were kinda lost and confused as to where this finished large sized room would come from, but thought our expedition a success. But right as we were leaving this Palestinian guy came and stopped us and wondered who we were and we told him we were Mormons. That was all he needed and we were off on a guided tour of the entire community center that we had found ourselves in and the residential area that is in the old city. And can I say awesome but MESSED UP! Let’s just say that nondiscrimination laws dont really apply here. The short answer is that the Israeli government gets what it wants and that that is about it. The end. There are so many people that live in a small area and the Palestinians that live there are all cramped in in it is a maze of who knows what. There are Israelis and Palestinians living right next to each other, and you can guess that there aren’t very many block parties in that neighborhood. And I don't think that there is much sharing of cups of sugar in the area since they start abandoned houses on fire on an all too frequent occasion. Mind you these are all made our of stone and cement and are just plopped where ever they can on top of each other. There wasn't much community planning. I think that suburban developers and city code departments would be passed out with how these things are built. BUT ANYWAYS..... Needless to say it was super cool. Meeting the locals is the best thing EVER! So as we were leaving the guy told us how to get out the back way and so of course we did. We were leaving and we met this 14 year old kid that showed us his school and his family and house and then told us how much he pays for stuff. Needless to say I'm gonna save alot of money! It was a sweet and tiring day to say the least.

So after I did all that I got home and commenced to read all the stuff that is required for class Tuesday. But just a quick note! My days are all sorts of screwed up. First the 5th and 6th and all one day. Then the Sabbath is on Saturday, and Sunday is the free day. Yeah I really dont in know what day of the week it is ever. No Joke! But back on the ranch.... my reading was very lacking. So I tried reading but sleep was overcoming me ALL the time. So I resorted to something amazing. Reading while riding a bike. Stationary of course, I is not that dumb.... I told myself that I was going to bike until the reading was done. Needless to say... an hour later I was done and REALLY sore. And tomorrow we are going hiking. This should be interesting.... So that was that. Things are great and there is soooo much cool stuff here. I love it.

Well y'all have fun and I will talk to you later!!

I HAVE ARRIVED!!

2010-01-07T07:09:00.000-07:00

Well for all y'all who follow this, which is suspect is next to nill, but that is fine with me. My ramblings shouldn't be at the top of anybodies list. But for those who do care, I"M IN JERUSALEM!! I landed yesterday after 27 hours of traveling, and was finally able to get to sleep after 34 hours straight of being awake. That was crazy. But today I don't feel jet lagged, but the 5th and 6th of January are all one day now. I really dont know what to think of that period of time that has all morphed into one day. So everybody that wants to know how to extend time the available time in a day, travel the world. It screws up everything and makes days seem 35 hours long. So for you workaholics. Just perpetually be flying around the globe with the movement of the sun, and think of all the stuff that you can get done in that day! I know, I am amazing and just solved the greatest problem people face. And all the solution will cost is a mere few thousand dollars in airline tickets, the uncomfortableness is sitting next to strange people you dont know, and getting frisked alot in various airports. But for a 35 hour day, I say its worth it.
Well onto things that people actually want to hear about.
I got to the airport on January 5th at 6 am. But believe it or not I wasnt the earliest person from my group there. There were to other groups going to Jerusalem that had to get there at 4:15! That was not soo cool. So I get there and delays became the name of the game. We were late taking off from Salt Lake City, for no apparent reason, and headed to Chicago. In Chicago we had to RUN to the next gate because they decided that having a connecting flight on the other side of the HUGE O'hare airport was a good idea. And I had to pee REAL bad. So that was interesting. Well finally after much rushing of things that shouldnt be rushed and looking like somebody off of Home Alone, I got to the terminal just before they closed the doors. And then proceeded to wait for an hour and forty-five minutes while the fixed so valve. Yeah that was fun. But the lady that I sat next to was a riot, and we had a really good conversation for the whole time I was on the plane. It was sweet, especially because she gave me $10 when I left so that I could go and buy dinner. And to think that I wanst even assigned to that seat! I got moved because of all the mayhem, and a few crying children who wanted to sit my mommy instead of daddy. Needless to say I didnt complain.
The only bad thing was that I didnt have time to buy dinner because the plane was late because some dumb piece of metal was bent the wrong direction, and had to sprint to get to the next plane. And it didnt help that we had to take a bus to the other terminal and then hike down to gate 74. I didnt think that it was possible to put that many gates in a single row, but Dulles pulled that one off spectacularly, much to my chagrin. So we got there in the nick of time, and let me tell you something, Austrian air is SWEET! First of all the flight attendants wear all red, and I mean ALL red. From the clip in their hair to the shoes on their feet, it is all bright red. and the seats are a sweet shade of green in the coach cabin and the first-class seats look like they killed barney and skinned him, and made the chairs with it. Which should have been done along time ago if you as me, and obviously you are because you are wasting your time reading this. But I digress. Also the blankets were green and so were the carpets in the plane. And I'm not talking about some earthy toned, soothing color. It was a funky shade of a darker green. I loved it, but maybe that was because I was sleep deprived. I was also very amazed with the food. We got two meals and they were delicious! That was a welcome surprise for sure!
But what wasnt a welcome surprise was how I couldnt SLEEP! There was this girl that I loathed in my group because after 10 mins on the plane she was out cold. Not cool. Not cool at all. oh well. I had plenty of time for me and my new toy to get acquainted. I would highly recommend an iPod touch. They are sweet. And the best thing is the great dumb apps that you can download. Like paper toss and finger races. Great way to waste lots of time and a 9 hour flight is a great way to do that.
But the snow in Vienna caused the flight to be an hour longer as we circled the airport. but when we finally landed we were stuck for 3 more hours in the vienna airport as we waited for the plane to get going. So FINALLY we landed in Tel Aviv 2 hours late and then drove to the Jerusalem Center. And let me tell you what! It is GORGEOUS! I'll have to be posting some pictures when I get to taking them.
Today we went on a walking tour of the Old City and it was sweet. There is going to be so much to see and do and I am so excited for that. This semester is going to be such a learning experience in culture, the gospel and all around awesomeness. So for anybody that is thinking about going, I would say do it, and I have only been here for a day. That is how amazing it is here.
Well Ill keep the random government watchdog updated with my travels because im pretty sure he is the only person who is going to be reading this. :)

SHALOM Y'ALL!!

Winding down of the semester

2009-12-10T11:03:00.000-07:00

Well I can't believe that this semester is almost over! But that is great because it means a break, seeing my family, and going to JERUSALEM!! Man I can't wait. But this semester has been good. Classes have been nuts at times, but things are looking good grade wise for the eld of the semester. I look at how much time I spend in the library studying and I marvel that I have the emotional and mental stamina to actually do that! I don't know what I am going to do when I don't have a pressing assignment or test to do. I guess I'll find something... :)

I am just amazed at how much I am able to learn and REMEMBER every semester. I really think that I am a nerd, because when I am walking around, I randomly think of things that specifically relate to what I have been studying. Like the DNA sequence of different things around me, and the electron configurations of the different things that are around and then how on earth somebody knows how to synthesize all the stuff that we use. I guess it is true and knowledge spawns more questions. But sometimes I just want to finish school and move on with life. But I guess that wanting to be a doctor isn't helping the short timetable I want. Oh well.

I also am excited for Christmas! I mean who doesn't like family, food and free stuff. I surely do! One of the nice things about being at BYU is that there is none of this politically correct crap about the "the holiday season" and Happy Holidays. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! That is definitely a perk. So Merry Christmas, and just think, while y'all are all freezing, I'll be in Jerusalem and Egypt. Oh yeah!! Well on that note.

My Book of Mormon class blog post.

2009-11-02T15:49:00.001-07:00

This is the post that I did for my Book of Mormon class. Feel Free to read.

lhttp://religion121fall2009.blogspot.com/2009/11/becoming-publisher-of-peace.html

Jeff

Swine Flu and explosions

2009-10-18T20:58:00.001-06:00

Well this week has been interesting. It started out good and ended.... interestingly. Well for firsts, I'm pretty sure I got the Swine Flu. I basically wanted to die for 4 days in a row and slept alot and had the same symptoms that my room mate did/does, and he got tested and had it. So my best guess was that I did. And if that is the case then I kicked the trash out of the Swine Flu! But for the record it was pretty bad. On the first day of being sick and not knowing what it was, I had to go and take a midterm. So I slept till 12 after going to sleep the night before at 10 and puttered around the apartment till 4 when I left to go and take the test. I was actually feeling pretty good until I had to walk up a slight hill. This hill is not very big or long but by the time that I was half way up I was saying to my self, " I think I'll set up base camp here and try for the summit in the morning." RIght then this girl from my ward yells out "Jeff! Are you OK?" I respond that I am dying and the other girl that she is with, also from my ward, starts laughing. When I finally make it to the top. She asks me what is up and I said that I was sick. The other girl then tells me why they were laughing after I responded. I guess that after the first girl had asked the question and before I could answer, the other girl said " He's dying!", and after I responded... well you get the picture.

So the flu is a nasty thing. It makes you think that you are getting better and then, WHAM!!, you feel like crap again. I sure hope this doesn't last long. Cuz I'm really sick of it.

But the funny part of the week was this morning. After an interesting night last night, I woke up not feeling too good. The Flu had decided to come back. So I decided to eat something (a logical choice in the morning, but it came back to haunt me later). So I was cooking some eggs and my room mate wanted to boil some water. Well that's not a problem because we live in the 21st century and there are 4 burners on the stove. I know, amazing huh. So Im using one burner and he is using the one diagonal to the one that I was using. I was almost finished and I went and grabbed a plate and set it on the burner next to mine, but below his, so that I could easily transfer the eggs. Well I'm standing there and all of the sudden there is this REALLY big sound of breaking glass. I just stood there and had no idea what had just happened. I was stunned and everything just seemed to stop. After what seemed like an eternity, my room mate said, " Did that explode?!" I then looked around and there were little white pieces in my eggs and in the water that was on the stove to boil. Also the stovetop was COVERED in little white pieces. I looked out in the daze to the rest of the kitchen and the ENTIRE floor was covered in white pieces. Then and only then did it all make sense. My room mate had turned the wrong burner on HI. Instead of his he had turned on the one below it right before I put my plate on it. It didn't take very long for the plate to heat up and detonate. And did it ever. There were little shards of glass everywhere. They covered the entire kitchen in every direction. Including behind me. I still don't know how I was able to not get hit by any little pieces but I wasn't it was pretty amazing. So we spent the next 20 mins trying to clean up all the pieces and then make the executive decision that even though the glass would give the eggs an interesting texture, it probably wouldn't be a good idea. I made more eggs.

Then I ate my eggs, started feeling sick again and went to church. At church I about keeled over during sacrament meeting and came home and slept for 3.5 hours, with a slight break caused by my sweet mommy's voice.

Hopefully things get better this week because if this last too much longer I might start killing people. But When life gives you lemons, carve pumpkins.

So here it is. My Swine Flu pumpkin, with face mask and thermometer included.

Nobel Peace Prizes.... everybody should have at least one

2009-10-09T09:38:00.000-06:00

Ok I know that everybody in the known world with a blog is going to write on this but I just couldn't keep myself from saying a little something. So Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Don't even think about asking what for because as the committee that awards these things said, it awarded him the prize to "to promote what he stands for and the positive processes that have started now." So you award on something that hasn't even happened. I though you had to do some thing to get an award? And with the current failure to fix the economy, I don't think he's going to fix the world either. Maybe he should just give money to the whole world. That'll fix all the problems. And While they're just handing out Peace Prizes like candy, can I have one too? I say hi to people and wave too. I've even kissed a baby before! And I don't lie nearly as often as Politicians do.

But think of it this way, if Obama can get the Nobel Peace Prize for just saying he is going to do something, and not actually producing anything, while failing at everything else, then why shouldn't they just give every Miss America and Miss Universe the Nobel Peace Prize because they say they want to bring about world peace. And not to be stereotypical, but if some pretty girl tells a guy to be nice, I think he might be a little more apt to do it, rather than when some 40 year old guy says the same thing. Just saying.

But the best is when I got back from class my Facebook was full of status updates about this. It was kinda comical:

Obama? Really? As my brother said it..."it's unfortunate that the Nobel Peace prize just devalued to the level of a 3rd place league bowling trophy." Enough said.

Mother Teresa. Elie Wiesel. The Dalai Lama. Nelson Mandela. Barack Obama. "♪One of these things is not like the others.♪"

This is a hilarious response to Obama *winning* the Noble Peace Prize RT @bevobeat: Sorry, Colt. Just learned that Obama has been awarded the Heisman, too.

Aren't you supposed to do something before you win a Nobel prize? Like invent global warming?

Barack Obama=Nobel Peace Prize Winner. Creative.

I'm sorry, but aren't you supposed to actually DO something to win the Peace Prize?

Nuf said.

and for the first time ever, a popular news source agrees with me!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091009/ap_on_re_eu/eu_nobel_peace

It continues a pattern that holds some peril for Obama: he is celebrated for who he is not, and for who he might potentially be, rather than for what he has actually done. If he doesn't provide results that justify the award, this Nobel will prove a millstone come election time

JERUSALEM!!!

2009-09-20T18:41:00.000-06:00

So I got accepted to the BYU Jerusalem Center for the winter 2009 Semester! I am so stoked! I know that this has taken forever to get on here but I am BUSY! Oh well. I leave on January 5th and get back some time toward the end of April. I am going to travel all over the Holy Land and see all the sights. Needless to say I am sooooo excited for that. The only thing is that I am going to have to get some MONIES! That is the hardest part but I know that it is going to be so worth it. But first I have to get through this semester. It is going to take alot of work but it will be over some time.

But with all the hectic stuff of school, things are fantastic. I love school and all that goes along with it. I know that some people are thinking that I must be nuts but I really do. When I take time to relax and realize that things really aren't that bad, but on the contrary. I guess that you just have to look and find the things that are the good in everyday and know that if you are doing what you are supposed to, then God will make up the difference. And that does include Chemistry, THANK GOODNESS! Cuz there is going to be alot that needs to be made up there.

Well back off to the school work with the hope that someday I'll be on the other side of the world!

Karsten Fagan

2009-09-10T15:44:00.000-06:00

Well today has been a day of mixed feelings for sure. Karsten Fagan for y'all who don't know is the most amazing 7 year old that I know. When he was under a year old he was diagnosed with a Brain Tumor that doctors said there was Zero chance of survival. Well after close to 40 surgeries and many complications his tumor was not growing and things were looking good. He was making great strides and was talking and walking all by himself. All things that the doctor said weren't possible. But yesterday brought some bad news. After 5 years of no growth, the tumor has begun to grow again and the doctors have exhausted all the knowledge that they have. So now it is in the hands of God.

The one amazing thing about the entire ordeal is that Karsten has always been happy and energetic no matter what was going on. He really is superman. But more then him being superman is his family. His family always looks on the bright side of the situation. I attribute much of that to what we believe. Sure, having your loved ones with you everyday is amazing but I know that after we die, we are still family and we will be together as a family forever. That information is of the upmost importance in daily life but more so when tragedy comes.

I know that Karsten was sent here for a reason, and God has a reason for him. But overall God wants us to be happy and to know that he has a plan for us. So instead of looking at what is going wrong; I'm looking at all the wonderful things that have happened and are still going to happen. Karsten is still here and that is the greatest miracle that I have seen.

For [Christ] hath answered the ends of the law, and he claimeth all those who have faith in him; and they who have faith in him will cleave unto every good thing; wherefore he advocateth the cause of the children of men; and he dwelleth eternally in the heavens.

And because he hath done this, my beloved brethren, have miracles ceased? Behold I say unto you, Nay; neither have angels ceased to minister unto the children of men.
Moroni 7:28&29

BYU!!!

2009-09-06T23:30:00.000-06:00

So I don't know how many of you watched the BYU Oklahoma Game but HOLY CRAP!! That was an amazing game. I have never seen people get so excited, except when I was in San Antonio and the Spurs won the Finals. That was nuts. People were honking their horns and drunkinly dancing in the streets and all sorts of craziness. Now of course there was not Drunkenness at BYU but it was just as much of a party. There were people dancing in the streets. People were yelling and driving around for 2 hours honking their horns and it was AMAZING! But the best part is that none of the people that I heard of actually got in trouble with the law. Now I know some moron probably did, but is was overall sober contained caos. By the stadium there were thousands of people that were basically having a contained riot, but the best part was the dancing in the streets. On University Ave. there were hundreds if not thousands of people who were lining the streets yelling and partying. But when the light would turn green they would run out into the street and yell there but as soon as the light turned Yellow they would leave the street and continue the yelling and jubilee on the sidewalk until the light turned green again. The whole time the cops were there and they were there just in case but as far as I know nothing happened.

But what I think is ironic is that all the national news people didn't rave about the amazing upset that BYU just performed but they had titles like " Stumped Sooners" or "Sooners Lose" and all they talked about was that the Sooners lost and that Bradford got hurt. Can we acknowledge the amazing BYU D-line? But I do have to say that BYU athletes do have some class. This pic was on ESPN.com and it shows Clawson, who clobbered Bradford on a clean hit, apologizing or something to that effect.

Now the picture makes Bradford look like a jerk but I am going to just say that it was taken at not the most opportune time. But you can tell that BYU does at least teach how to be a good athlete and not glory in potentially ruining a Heisman trophy winners season.

Well I do have to say that it was an amazing game and I think that my $140 all sports pass is going to be good this year.

School

2009-09-03T12:03:00.000-06:00

Well school is underway! This semester is going to be an interesting one. I am taking some hard classes, i.e. Accounting 2oo, Chem 106/107, and PDBio 120 along with Men's Chorus ( i made the call back list so we'll see. That will probably be the next update) Latin 123 for Pre-med and Dance 184. That is going to be an interesting class if I can add it. For the first time in BYU Recorded history we are trying to recruit GIRLS to a dance class. That is so not the norm. Oh well. Hopefully some guys drop out and I can add the class but I doubt it because there are some really cute girls in the class. But any shot that I had in getting any of them will probably be ruined when I step on their toes. Let's just say that dancing is not one of my forte`s. Well other then that life is just going to get more and more fun as the semester progresses. Lots of studying and whatnot. and my brain probably expeloding a few times. Oh well that is college.

I think I'm getting better at this updating thing!

Long needed update

2009-08-29T00:10:00.000-06:00

So this is the update to finish up the summer. Well it was a good one. I drove more fast cars and had a good time. That is about all that I remember. Well other then camping. I went Camping with Darbye and Lyle Vanniman and Erin Sorensen and let me tell you it was great fun. We camped and floated the Coeur d'Alene River. I got there early and was pleasantly reading Glenn Beck's Common Sense ( Everybody should read it) and all of the sudden I hear these guys driving by yelling at me. At first I didnt know what they were saying but then as they got closer I heard that they were saying that there was a moose in my camp. My first thought was that I was sitting in my camp and it isnt very big so I would know if there was a moose because they are small. So I just ignore them and go back to reading but a second later I think, "Well maybe I should look" We all know that feeling when somebody says to not do something we just can't resist. Well that is the way that I was with myself. So I take a gander out in front of me and lo and behold THERE IS A MOOSE!! It was a cow and she was only like 15 feet right in front of me! I got worried because if there was a baby she was not going to be happy with me. So I got a litte freaked out and then thought "Well my truck is to far away and even then she could still kill me" So i decided to just sit in my little seat and not move. That was defiantly the best plan. I didn't see a baby and she just trundled right by and headed down to the river.

Well the funny part of this is that Darbye has never seen a live moose and really wants to. Ok I think that really is an understatement. She is DYING to see moose. Well I give her a call (I actually got reception in the wilderness. Not really roughing it I guess. But it was REALLY crappy reception so i think it just made it worse because there was the illusion that I was connected to the outside world. oh well let's move back outside of these parenthesis and back to the aforementioned story.) and tell her. Well she was sad that she missed it but I assured her that I would try and seduce the moose back. Well after I hung up I was like, "Hey moosey! Darbye wants to see you so if you wouldn't mind taking a quick stroll by here in 3 hours that would be great sweet cheeks!" Well that was followed by some very scientific moose seduction calls and then I was back to the book. Well I know that you are sure that my skills worked because I HAVE skills but much to the dismay of everyone, no dice. Oh well I guess I just can't seduce mooses. I hope that doesn't carry over to the human females. :/

Well to finish out the summer I went on a date with Sadie Lee and got to drive Randy Priebe's 91 Nissan 300ZX. It was nice. Well it wasn't always nice but I guess I can seduce cars to do what I want. When I drove it the night before the date, because Randy said it was driving rough, it drove BAD! It was like the old Sentra again! One of the cylinders felt like it wasn't firing and it had NO guts. Well I decided I was going to take it anyways and went Tuesday afternoon and picked it up. Well let me tell ya what. It drove like a beauty except for the rough idle, and the shaky breaks, and the turning off as I got off the freeway (I think it was from the shaking of the breaks cuz its had electrical problems before.) But it always just started right up again and we were on our way. Oh boy was it fantastic. I love fast powerful cars. :( Someday... Someday.

Well that was the end of the summer for me cuz thursday I left C d'A and now I am back here in Provo Spending all my hard earned summer money. Sigh. Well I guess that is what I worked for. And also I'm waiting for word on Jerusalem... :D This could be an exciting year! We'll see!

Oh what a week of FUN......

2009-07-21T14:03:00.000-06:00

Well So far this week I have been on the phone for over 12 hours with HP Tech Support. I should have just been a bit more persistant and not so nice and I could have cut that time down by alot. But I didn't. I was nice and let them do what they thought was right but after 3 diferent Indian's doing the same thing that wasn't working, I called a 4th time and told them what I wanted done and what needed to happen and guess what!!! I'm currently on the phone with HP waiting for the Comprehensive Hard Disk Test to complete, estimated time, 1hr 20 Mins. So I put my phone on speaker and muted it and now I'm eating and writing this. I hope that she is going and getting something to eat in the wee hours of the morning over there, or taking a nap because this is going the be a while. But At least she has promised me something that the others haven't. I am going to get at least a recovery disc to really fix my computer or I am going to get a new hard drive. That is PROGRESS!
Other then that things are pretty much the same. Working and having too much fun. Oh well that is life. But the funnest part of the week was that I drove some people that I work for, I weed for them and do other yard work, to a wedding 30 mins north of my house in their 2008 Porsche Cayanne S! It was sooooo much fun! I loved it. I don't think that I will own one but it was sure fun to get payed to drive some body in their own nice car. But the best part was when I went to pick them up. They had been drinking, hence me driving, and the entire way home the guy that owns the car is telling me all these stories about how he has driven it at 160( and I believe him) and he was trying to get me to floor it past all these people when I had the chance. Well I didn't because I wanted to keep them safe but also keep the professional apperance. Well What they don't know, unless they read this which is VERY unlikely is that I did get it going 114 on the way back up to pick them up.... he he he. BUT MAN that car likes to go fast! and so do I so it was great! It just makes me want to get nice cars. That will come some day for sure.

This is the car :)

Well there is what my exciting week has consisted of. Hopefully things will keep being exciting!

I Hate Computers, ok just windows

2009-07-15T14:43:00.000-06:00

Well as the title suggests, I hate windows. Right now I have a virus or some things like that on my computer that is screwing everything up. When I search anything it doesn't go to the website that is says, it redirects me to something else. And when I try to open my anti-virus software it won't open and it won't update. It is driving me CRAZY! So I am transferring all my files to an external hard drive and then I am going to wipe the hard drive and re-install the evil operating system. I know there are those of you who keep telling me to go with that Linux stuff and I know that you computer heads like it and it is free and it works all fancy like but I just don't want to deal with that. I know I could get used to it but there are too many things that I see that could go wrong! And do you truly want me calling you all the time asking where this or that is, or how do I make this work and Why can't I find this? Yeah I don't think that you do. I'm sure that you love me SOOOO much but I don't think that you love me THAT much. I know that I don't want to talk to you that many times in one day. So for now I am just going to stick to the most evil empire that there is out there. Microsoft.

But one day when I am not super poor and trying to go to Jerusalem, I am going to buy me a MAC! That will be the day of happiness. Finally getting away from Satan in computer form and going to something better. Now I'm not saying that Apple is the savior of all computer problems because I know that they have flaws, but at least they work better! I know, I know the aforementioned Linux people are probably slumping back in their chairs asking why?!?!? I know that you won't be able to fix it for me.(but is that really a bad thing?) Lets go back to the scenario of installing Linux.... do you want that? I didn't think so. But for now I am just going to suffer and bemoan the fact that I have to deal with stupid computers for the foreseeable future. Oh well the day will come.........

Photo Contest

2009-07-08T01:44:00.000-06:00

So i entered this photo contest for a $1000 Scholarship and everybody should go and vote for it!!

Summer!

2009-07-06T22:03:00.000-06:00

Well I finally went full on swimming for the first time since I got home from my mission. 'Bout time don't ya think. Well it was great. The water is nice and it was just fantastic!!

Man I love living in CD'A!!

SCHOLARSHIP!

2009-07-02T09:11:00.000-06:00

Scholarships are great things. So this morning after I got back from better round of golf, I checked my email and there was this email from BYU Scholarships but the problem was that there was nothing in the actual letter. That was a bit curious to me so I logged onto my BYU account and there was a message there for me, and it said that I got HALF TUITION!! I have not been this excited in a long time. I guess that the lack of a social life last semester has payed off. That is such a good thing and it is really going to help when I got to Israel in the winter, at least I hope I can get a spot and go. I guess that when you do work hard that things do work out. Actually achieving my goals is something relatively new to me so this is exciting. Before in life I set goals but didn't work very hard to get them. The mission defiantly changed that.

Life right now is hard because I am working my butt off at a whole bunch of different jobs but now it is looking like it is going to be totally worth it. I love it because when you pray for help and do all that you can, the lord steps in and fills in the rest. I was wondering how I was going to be able to pay for everything this school year because even though I was working a lot it just didn't look like it was going to be enough. So I have been praying for help and BLAM! here is help. I Just love it.

Also I was able to follow a pediatrician around for a whole day this week and let me tell you what! That was amazing. I don't think I have had more fun just being some place, except for Texas of course. It totally set in my mind that I really do want to be a pediatrician. It was amazing to be able to sit and talk with some of the kids and also to see the doctor help the kids. It was so cool. But one of the coolest parts was to be able to go and watch a C- Section. That was so amazing. For anybody who hasn't seen a baby be born, live, I would suggest it. It is amazing everything that happens and how it all works. It really attests to God's hand in everything. I am just amazed and the things that modern medicine can do. But what is cool is that next week I am going to follow around an amazing Neurosurgeon. He is supposed to be one of the best that is here in North Idaho. He is not as friendly and the pediatrician, She was awesome!, but he is amazing at what he does so it will be good to see the different personalities.

Well other then that there really isn't much that is going on, although above there are a few lines. I guess that this whole pursuit thing is going good. I know that I am amazing myself at the things that I am able to do. Who'd-a-thunk that if you actually work hard good things happen? Guess I should have applied that years ago. Oh well guess I'll just have to keep on moving and go mow the lawn, YAY!

The Idea

2009-06-30T22:41:00.001-06:00

Well the idea behind this blog is to document my pursuit of my goals in life. Those include getting married, having a family and becoming a pediatrician. Also I like the reference that it the title gives to cars, because they really are the love of my life! until I get a wife of course. So there ya go stay tuned for more if anybody actually looks at this....

My First BLOG!!

2009-06-30T01:12:00.000-06:00

Hey so I have a blog. I really dont know what to put on here but I have one! Someday it might be useful, i guess. Any ideas? If not oh well, i have one though :)