Losing Kind of Sucks and So Does Dating

Well, first off, I'm really ticked off about a number of things tonight. It was the second game of the Intramural tournament, and Don Wicks didn't show. And we got our butts kicked 10-2. It left an absolutely sour taste in our mouths. Where the hell was Don? And the thing is, I played my heart out. I think I honestly didn't make a single passing mistake the entire game, and I played the best I could on defense. That's my only satisfaction, knowing there's nothing more I could have done. But without Don, it was hopeless. Everybody was just making mistakes all over the place, where with Don they probably would just drop it back. I think if we had Don we would have had a chance to win. Anyways, it was frustrating. I told Chris before the game that I wanted to win this one because I'm going to miss the third game on Tuesday and I don't want to feel like if I had been there we could have made it to the finals. Oh well. The next game will be against OPA again, with their full team. It'll be tough to pull that off. I guess my Intramural championship dreams are over.

Then on top of it, before the game we were having an NBA Finals party at my house, but the Spurs were sucking it up. When I got back, I found out they had almost climbed their way back, but lost 87-85. To New Jersey on their home court. Absolutely frustrating. Tony Parker just totally froze up, I hear. Anyways, it was a good party, though.

So Kristen came to watch me at the game today. I'm glad she came [content edited because it's none of your business].

But it's off to Austin tomorrow. I can't wait.

Posted 11:16 PM | Comments (1)

Austin Day ½

Here I am. Back home. In Austin, for those of you who might think I'm referring to Provo or Virginia. Even without a permanent address here anymore, I still feel like I'm away from home until I come back here. I guess having grandparents here helps. But I digress. Let me go back to this morning, when I played Frisbee, of course. Got in a good two hours of pickup. Turns out that Don had no idea about last night's game, which makes it even more of a tragedy. Chris (who played with us) dropped me off at the airport. The cool coincidence there was I ran into Jamie from Frisbee. Gave her a hard time about not being there this morning. Also found out that she and Tyler are getting married at the end of July, right about the same time as Becky. The plane ride itself was boring. Southwest airline again. I can't tell you how much I dislike Southwest. My left leg was cramping up from Frisbee, so I got to be a "disabled" person and board early so I could get a left aisle seat.

Amy picked me up from the airport about 8:00 PM or so. She was running late, of course, but not too late. We immediately went over to see hers and Susie's pad. Got to play with their new kitten (who was also with us in the car). They've only had her for about a week and are still trying to decide on a name for her. All I know is she is not house-trained and has some serious problems clawing people. I hung out with Amy until Susie got home and then we went to get a bite to eat at the Kerbey Lane Café. They don't have a lot of money right now, so I figure I'll take them out a few times and get them a few good meals. Kerbey Lane was alright. I'd been there once before, way back with Joe and Bryan, I think. Nothing too extraordinary. Of course Amy and Susie went bonkers over the fried pickles. I don't get it. Found out that Amy has a tongue ring and a belly-button ring. I don't understand why anyone would ever want to do the tongue. That's just gross. Of course, I interested in Natasha and she had a tongue ring. I explained this to Amy and Susie, and they seemed shocked. They also seemed shocked when I asked if she had pierced any other parts of her body—they just seemed to look at each other as if to ask, how could you possibly even know about that. Honestly, I think they get a really distorted perspective on me, living here in Utah and not around all the time. I suppose they were too young to know me in my High School years, and since then I've been gone. Thankfully, they assured me they had no other piercings. Although Susie's got an ankle tattoo. Well, I suppose if you're going to get one, that's the place to get it. That or maybe really small on the back of your neck like Amber's got. I'm very much against tattoos as well, though. It's very rare you see someone with a tattoo without it looking base and dehumanizing. And of course Susie would like to pierce her tongue as well, but doesn't have the money. Maybe I can dissuade her on that one. The trick for Susie is not revealing the tattoo to mom or dad during the wedding in July, which will be hard. I just told her to tell them a few weeks in advance and let them cool off so it doesn't mess up the wedding.

Then Amy went to go see her boyfriend, Brenden, who I suppose I will meet on Monday. Susie, meanwhile, drove me to Grandma's and Grandpa's, where I'll be sleeping, of course. We had a pretty good talk about things in the car. I think she's finally getting some sort of orientation on her life. She seems much more focused about school, now. I had some pretty good advice to offer about what you can do with degrees and stuff, because I think she really had no idea what to do to get into editing like she wants to. She was thinking it was all Journalism, which she can't get into, but she was happy to hear that it's just as possible to get into editing with English. Also talked about poetry and about why we write poetry and stuff. Good bonding time, if you ask me.

I walked in Grandma's and Grandpa's door about 11:00 or so, and they were both still up waiting for me. So I sat down and we talked for a while about the Germany trip and other things. Then they went to bed. And now I'm about ready to retire myself.

Well, I'm looking forward to the next few days, though. Schlitterbahn. Grandma's cooking. Seeing Julie one last time before the wedding. I found Anu on the web a while back (got to thinking about her on the Germany trip, and also when Jovita emailed me a while back), so I emailed her and hopefully she'll respond and we can hang out. And of course I've got to find time for an Ultimate game. Should be a pretty good vacation.

Posted 11:32 PM | Comments (1)

Austin Day 2

I woke up pretty late this morning, and Grandma and Grandpa were getting ready to go to church. I know this is bad, but I really wasn't in the mood to go to church today, especially somewhere where the only person I know is Grandma. So I told them I was going to the student ward and then went on over to see Susie and try to help her fix her laptop. Then I went and caught sacrament meeting with the student ward. I was surprised by how few people I recognized. I ran into a few people from the old 2nd ward as their meeting was letting out. Not many, though. Ran into Jonas' mom and sister (Wren) at the student ward. Also ran into Paul Bryson and Michella. I just want to say that Michella is really hot. Got kind of that Nicole Kidman look. If only she weren't so young. Amy told me I was crazy when I explained this to her. Other than that, I think like one person came up and introduced themselves to me, so I wasn't too impressed.

I left before Sunday School and hung out with Amy and Susie some more. Caught the tail end of Moulin Rouge, which fascinated me. I've been resisting it thus far, but the music and the metatheatre is really compelling. There are some really cool things going on with that script. I do think there was a little bit of a cop-out at the end though. Ewan McGregor's character should have died. But maybe I need to see the whole thing before I make judgments. Then we went over to Grandma's for dinner. Good food. I love Grandma's cooking. We had potato salad and a roast. Michael and his very young girlfriend (like 16 years old—Michael is 19) came over as well. Then we played games for a while, and then everybody disappeared. So Grandma and Grandpa and I spent the night talking and stuff. I showed them some of the Germany videos and pictures. By the time we were done, it was pretty late.

Posted 11:34 PM | Comments (1)

Schlitterbahn Pictures

Michael and Susie at Schlitterbahn

Did you know that Schlitterbahn rocks! I saw this "Water Parks of America" program one time on the Travel Channel, and it was ranked the number one water park in the U.S. And I don't doubt it. Nothing beats their tube rides. In fact, I made this trip to Austin almost solely so I could go to Schlitterbahn again. It's that cool. Oh, and Susie, Amy, Brenden, and Michael all tagged along.

• Pictures
• Video (17:22)

Posted 10:03 PM | Comments (1)

Schlitterbahn!

Today was the central day for the trip, and it lived up to expectations. For those of you that don't know, Schlitterbahn is the best water park in the history of mankind. The self-proclaimed "hottest coolest time in Texas," Schlitterbahn's been named America's Number One Water Park by numerous sources, including this hour-long documentary on water parks I saw a while back on the Travel channel. It's in New Braunfels, which is about an hour to an hour and half south of my grandparent's house in Cedar Park. It's built right into the sloped and winding banks of the Comal River. Most of the old school rides, which I love the most, are just simple, well-designed tube rides that wind peacefully down the banks until they dump right into the river. They're great for racing or playing tag or just sitting back and chilling with friends as you float along in the shade for hours. And on top of that, they've got all the new rides you could ever want. If you haven't been there, do yourself a favor and check it out at http://www.schlitterbahn.com/parkmap-nb.asp.

Anyways, it used to be an annual event that the high school gang (Jonas, Joe, James, Aaron, Bryan, Andy, and so on) would go down there each summer and party. We even did this one year after we got back from our missions, but after that we all started losing touch. These trips were a blast, and much should be written about them, but that will have to wait. All I know is it'd been too many years since I last went to Schlitterbahn, so I really needed to go. So this morning, Amy, her boyfriend Brenden, Susie, Michael, and his girlfriend all headed on down. I had a goal of leaving at 7:30, which of course was unrealistic. I mean, I was ready, but no one showed up at Grandma's until 8:45. And then everybody hurriedly shoved breakfast down their throats (I had leftover potato salad from the night before—the thought of this made everyone else sick, but I loved it). I finally met this Brenden guy. He's alright, I guess. Much better than I was expecting. He's Jewish, which I can tell discomforts a lot of the family, just from stories I've heard about inviting him over for meals and accidentally having pork and whatever. Looks kind of like Paul Bryson, at least in build and facial expression. Except Brenden has curly hair. And he reminds me somewhat of Wayne in his mannerisms and sense of humor. Strange—both of my sisters going after similar guys. Well, I'm sure they're not similar at all under the surface, but I'm just talking about surface impressions, since that's all I've got. I get the impression from Susie that he's a very controlling guy, which drives Susie nuts, but it's kind of ironic when you consider how controlling Amy is herself. I didn't see it so much, but it's probably because I'm older and a guy. Actually, I got along pretty well with him. We were joking around like two old friends in the water park, much to the surprise of Amy, who pretended to be revolted by how boyish we were, but I'm pretty sure was secretly delighted by how well we got along. I know the family is against him, but I honestly think he's good for Amy because I for one was very worried that she'd do a lot worse.

We finally left about 9:30, and thanks to very light traffic, we made it there about 11:00, which is about an hour after the park opens. We parked at the new section of the park, which is a first for me. I always park on the other end. But it was easier to find parking at the new park. We did decide to start on the other end, after all, so we took the tram over and grabbed a locker and headed for the tube rides. These were awesome. At first we tried to race each other. Then we decided to do the anti-race approach (i.e. stay in the ride the longest). And then we just went for the lazy drift approach. The lines for the rides were surprisingly short, and I think we got through all the major tube rides by about 2:00. Then, we went back over to the new side of the park and ate. About this time it became clear that the cloud cover which had prompted us to ignore sunscreen had actually been missing for the last two hours, so we put that on. A little too late for some people in the group. We had chili cheese fires and giant turkey legs and burgers. Man, water park food is expensive. But these were huge turkey legs. One leg fed me, Amy, and Susie. I got some great shots of Michael trying to stuff another turkey leg in his mouth.

Then we rode all the newer rides. These are fun, but it's not so cool. I think part of the problem is the new side of the park looks a lot like most parks. There isn't a river running through it with lots of shade. But I guess it leaves them a lot of room for more space-intensive rides. We finished with that side about 5:30 and headed back to the old park for a few more rides. About this time, it became pretty clear to me that I had neglected to fully wipe around the sunscreen. So there's some interesting patterns on my chest and shoulders where I missed the sunscreen. Looks almost like handprints. So not only are these going to burn pretty badly, but it's also going to look funny for a while. Oh well, at least I'll get to tell the story for a week or so.

Finally, we rode a couple more rides in the old park. We visited that one ride that starts on top of the main entrance. They've changed it so it's less of a drop and so you're using a much much smaller sled. Apparently the old approach left someone dead a few year's back. Which is sad. I liked it better. It's not so scary now. But at least you don't have to lug a heavy sled all the way to the top. And there's some pretty good hydroplaning action. So, by the time all that was done, everyone except for me was pooped, and we left for home. I rode back with Michael and his girlfriend, and I ended up sleeping most of the time. Nothing like a long day in the sun to make you sleepy. But it was a good feeling. My favorite thing about Schlitterbahn is that for the rest of the day, whenever you sit or lay down, it feels like you're still in that tube, just floating down the river. When I got home, I chatted with Grandpa and Grandma for a while, watched a little bit of TV, and then finished a newsletter article for work.

Update: here's some pictures of Schlitterbahn.

Posted 11:38 PM | Comments (1)

Austin Day 4

Today seemed almost anti-climactic in the wake of Schlitterbahn. First thing this morning I got a call from Julie, and we arranged to do lunch at that one Mexican restaurant up by Dell again. I forget what it's called, but it's on the south-bound service road, just south of 620 and I-15. Then I went over to Susie's and worked on her computer until she had to leave for work. She can't play DVDs on her machine—Grandpa forgot to install the necessary codecs when he gave her a new hard drive. So I fixed that. Sort of. Then it was lunch time. There was some pretty good food. Ryan (her fiancée) came along. I think I spent more time talking to him than to Julie. You know, I hadn't thought of it until today, but I wonder if he's a little uncomfortable with me. I mean, if my fiancée invited some old guy friend to lunch knowing there had been romantic interest however long ago, I would be uncomfortable. Anyways, it was a good lunch. And I just learned that Julie quit her job. Tired of the rat race. Ryan and I actually spent a while exploring career options for Julie, like coaching or physical therapy or something, and I can tell Julie felt uncomfortable about that kind of attention. Funny thing—I forgot my wallet. But I didn't even notice until I saw Ryan grabbing the check and was about to protest, only to find out that I didn't have a card to counter with.

I dropped back by Grandma's to grab some stuff to deposit at the Credit Union while I was down here. I went out to the one up at Parmer, only they were closed for the week, so I raced down to the one by Capitol Plaza. I also upgraded my Visa card to a Gold account, so now I've got better rates and a higher limit. Doesn't matter too much—it's just the $2500 limit was very restraining when I went to Europe and bought the PDA and other plane tickets all at the same time. I just barely missed rush hour traffic on the way home (cutting through the back streets on over to MoPac instead of heading on up I-35 probably helped there). Then I went back to Grandma's for a little food (she invited the missionaries and Michael & Aunt Linda over), but I had to leave part way through to get down to the Ultimate Frisbee game. Which, of course, was right near the credit union. Well, actually it was in a park just south of the old Airport—but close enough. It was pretty fun. It took a little bit of a power struggle between me and another guy on the team (who refused to run routes for me at first, always dropping back and asking for the dump), but I soon earned some respect as the best handler there. I'm sure it was a poor turnout (talent wise—number wise, we probably had 5 subs per team), though, because I can't imagine there aren't better handlers in the Austin area. And my defense was actually pretty good too. I wonder if the altitude change was helping my endurance or something.

Anyways, that lasted until dark. Then I went home, showered, and called up Susie/Amy to find out what's up. Except Amy was working. She was supposed to call me so we could hang out before I left. But she didn't. So I'm a little upset about that. But I did get to spend quality time with Susie. We went down to some coffee shop off the Drag. It was a pretty cool place. We sat outside and waited for a few of her friends. It was a great evening. Not too hot or humid. A slight breeze. Her friends came about 11:00 or so, and we chatted for a while. A guy and a girl, and honestly I've already forgotten their names. They were kind of the Gothic type—Susie warned me they'd be really intense and depressing, and I told her I was used to it, but they really didn't end up being too weird or depressing tonight. Mostly just mellow. Spent some time talking about a movie short the guy wants to do. Also looked at photos. And we left probably about 12:00 or so. Then I came home, and Susie went to say hi to some friend. I've got an early flight tomorrow, so bye.

Posted 04:43 PM | Comments (1)

Ultimate is Cool

Well, I'm back. Nothing much happened yesterday, except I got really ticked off at Chris for not leaving a message to tell me where my car was. After about an hour of waiting for a call, I solicited the help of the airport parking department to go out searching for my car through all the parking lots in the hot sun with two suitcases. Not fun. Eventually, after about 15 minutes and we were almost all the way through the first lot, Chris did call, and told me my car was in short-term parking, which ended up costing me like 3 or 4 bucks more than long term parking. So anyways, that took a bite out of the work I was supposed to do as well. Dude, I was seriously ticked. Chris called to try to apologize and I was like, don't even talk to me right now, because I knew I had nothing nice to say. I don't think I've been that ticked in a long time.

But enough complaining. Mark randomly showed up at our house this week. I got home from Austin and he was cuddling on the couch with some girl. It took me a minute to realize that hey, isn't Mark supposed to be in Boston? But he drove down here for a week to take care of a few things. And hang out with this Krista chick. They've been inseparable. She's pretty hot, too. I wonder if Mark is serious about this one.

Today was a great Ultimate day. We played against Mike French's and Adam Taylor's team, and they got up on us early. Like 7-2 or something. They were playing a zone, and we were making a number of mistakes, and they were making none. We had a really limited turnout, too. Mostly us older and less energetic veterans. None of the young ones. Not even Jon. Ironically, I think this helped on our comeback. Because I pretty much took over on handling, and we started killing their zone. Tons of passing, lots of dropping back and waiting. Everybody was incredibly patient and willing to wait for me to get back there for the drop. Then I'd just do a quick release to throw it before the cup could get on me, or I'd just use my high backhand to get over the zone. Or I'd just wait and do another drop and try to get the disc again. I think it really helps to have veterans out there. We've got nothing to prove, and we may not have speed, but we know that there'll always be a decent throwing option if you wait long enough.

Anyways, it's hard to describe the game other than that it was cool. We came back to win 15-9. An 13-2 run. The excitement was intense. And the team spirit was pretty good as well. Mike came up to me after the game and said, "I don't understand it, how did that happen." The only thing I could tell him was that we played really bad at first, while they played really well, and then things just switched around. So it was a fun game. I love Ultimate Frisbee.

Posted 11:42 PM | Comments (1)

Wind in the Willows

Tonight I took Kristen out to see "Wind in the Willows." Chris and Katie came as long, as well. I was supposed to see the play Wednesday night, but I just didn't have the energy to find a date, so I had Chris & Katie trade in my tickets. And of course, they decided to come along. You know, this is kind of funny. My first date with Kristen was pretty much along the same lines—went to see "The Crucible" last year and Chris and Katie were just coincidentally sitting in front of us. (That performance of "The Crucible" was really something, by the way. Just incredible).

Before the play, we went to eat at this new Hawaiian place just north of Jerry's by BYU. It was alright, I guess. Wasn't very crowded, so they paid a lot of attention to us. Seems like a family operation. Wanted us to stay for some sort of show at 7:30, but the play was starting.

"Wind in the Willows" was fun, too. It was mostly intended as entertainment—something you could bring kids to. But there still was a lot of interesting things going on. I remembered bits and pieces from seeing the Disney cartoon as a kid, so it was fun trying to put all the memories together. They got really creative with the set and costumes. The acting was also pretty good, especially Toad and the actress playing Rabbit (who reminded me of Mary Poppins). But of course what was most interesting to me was what the play was saying regarding class struggle and social structure. It was kind of a complicated message, in that the play really doesn't seem to argue for social change. It does argue for awareness and respect of what I'm sure back then seemed like progressive ideas, but it also seemed to argue that progressive thought was reckless and destructive, and we'd all be better off just leaving things as they were. Chris and I got into a little debate about this, each of us taking turns playing the devil's advocate. I asked Kristen what she thought of this afterwards, because I think we did the same thing after "The Crucible." She just shrugged. I told her that's the just the way we are as a family, always prolonging the debate for the sake of debate, even if it means taking on a challenging position. Anyways, a kind of cool thing about the play is that the program was pretty interactive. It contained a study guide about the play oriented around different lessons for kids. Well, not just for kids, they were all pretty good topics for discussions—like the importance of friends and morals and that kind of stuff. But all within the framework of the play. Whoever put it together did a really good job. I kind of wish I had kids so I could do it as an FHE activity or something.

After "Wind in the Willows" we went over to Chris & Katie's apartment for ice cream and a game. I can't remember what it was called, but it was something about a farm or something. Really complicated with lots of math. It was pretty fun, but I think that the complexity of the game demands that it be played on a computer, because there's so many things to keep track of. Anyways, we played until like 12:45 or so. I was surprised Kristen was willing to stay so long. I was perfectly willing to retire at midnight, but she was probably more into the game than I was. In the end, I won. That's the most important thing. I beat Chris despite it being my first time ever seeing the game :). I had a really good harvest of strawberries, apparently. So anyways, I'll be rubbing that in his face for a while.

Posted 11:45 PM | Comments (1)

Sco Protest

Well, I just posted some pictures from the SCO protest here in Lindon, UT. SCO, if you don't know, is a company that's really ticked off a lot of people in the computing world. Their main headquarters are right across the parking lot from us. It's such a small building, and they're causing such a big fuss. Ironic, if you ask me.

So here's some pictures. Note the little kids. They get indoctrinated so early. And note the SCO employees intermingling amongst the protesters and handing out drinks and stuff. Good thing they know how to laugh at themselves.

Posted 05:23 PM | Comments (1)

At Thanksgiving Point with Kristen and Andy

Kristen and I went to go see Andy play the accordion at Thanksgiving Point tonight, and here's the proof:

Posted 11:03 PM | Comments (1)

Accordions, Mussolini, Summer Solstice, and Ultimate Tournaments

Hmmm. What's been going on this week. Not much, at least not that I can think of. Thursday night was the last game of the season, and we got our butt's kicked by Andy's team. I guess beating them the first game of the season was a bigger deal than I thought. They have a lot of people from the OPA intramural team, so that explains a lot. What else? At work I've been working on the Q2 newsletter. Probably spending way too much time on it. Well, actually, I'm not spending much time on it at all, I'm just using it as an excuse not to get started on other projects.

It's this weekend that's been interesting. First off, I missed a camping trip to Goblin Valley with Mike and Erin and Amber and Candace and Jilleen and a few other people. That would have been fun, not only because I haven't been camping in a long while, but also because of all those girls. What odds! That's okay. Like anything's going to happen with those girls anyways. I couldn't go first of all because of a lack of vacation days (they left early Friday), and second of all because of the Ultimate tournament today. You know where my priorities are.

Last night I went with Kristen to Thanksgiving Point to see Andy play the accordion. I guess they put on parties from 7-9 every Friday night during the summer, with different musicians in different sections of the garden. I had never been the big section of the gardens. I had always assumed the stuff behind the stores was it, but the gardens out back are beautiful, and so big—I'm thinking at least twenty or thirty acres. It must take a lot of work to keep it watered and groomed. I was especially fond of the waterfall. So, we went around, taking pictures and video and stuff. Got a guy to take some pretty good pictures of the two of us at the waterfall. Then we found Andy, and I got some pretty good pictures of him playing the accordion in the Italian gardens. It was a very nice atmosphere. Very romantic. If only I wanted to fall in love. Anyways, Kristen and wondered around for a little bit more. We ran into Neal (my boss) and his wife. That was an odd coincidence. Then we left the gardens. Funny thing is that there was supposed to be an admission fee of $7 per person, and the girl at the desk had neglected to charge us (up until I found out about the fee, I was wondering why there weren't more people there. It looked like a great way to spend Saturday night). So, I debated for a little bit and decided to tell the girl this and ended up paying admission. That's what a conscience ends up doing for you. Stupid conscience :).

After that, we ate some dinner at the restaurant there. Another great place to be. I had Salmon, and it was actually quite good. We spent a lot of time discussing our goals and stuff, especially about how humanity needs a better vision of itself and where it's going. We think a lot alike on the subject. Then we went to Blockbuster and spent a while trying to decide what to see. It was a tossup between "Roman Holiday" and "Tea with Mussolini," but I could tell she was more interested in the latter, and I was kind of curious as to why I liked the film so much the first time I watched it. I mean it's Cher, for crying out loud. Who'd have thought it could actually be good? So we brought it back to the house and watched it. It was as good as I remember. I don't have time to analyze it now—I do know I got a totally different message out of it this time, though. And Kristen loved it. Told me she's going to recommend it to all of her friends.

Today, of course, I got up pretty early in celebration not only of the tournament, but also the longest day of the year. Yippee! Except it was very cold. Had to dress in layers for the tourney. That's just ridiculous. Stupid Utah. Anyways, I picked up Chris and we went to the tournament and warmed up. Probably got a half hour of warming-up in. Then it was time for our first game against Ring of Fire. This should have been a killer game, but Ring of Fire's pretty much disbanded now. Chip's gone. Jeff's gone. Woo's gone. As well as a few other people. So all that was left was Don and Brady. It was a close game at first, but then they started to get tired (no subs) and we broke away. We ended up winning that without too much of a problem. Then came our bye game. Chris and I just chilled, and Katie showed up towards the end with water and donuts. The donuts were the most important part. I ended up going out on the field for our next game eating one for half of the first point. Then I had to start running, and my stomach realized it hadn't been such a smart idea. The final three games ended up being intense. Probably more intense than they should have been. The second game was against Mike French's team, again, but this time they were out for revenge, and plus they had a few players they didn't have last time. The we played REO. Then Chocolate Covered Ants. So it wasn't like these were really tough teams to beat during the season, it's just that they were all very hungry for wins. But we rose to the occasion. We were short-handed again (Jon, Mike, Fowler, Chris, Tyler, Ben, and I were pretty much it for the team). So as you can see, a lot of handling and very little speed. Each time got tired quickly and got behind early. But all the games were pretty much the same formula. They threw zones at us, and after a little bit our team just started working together and killed the zone. Of course, this just took even more running. We had very long games with lots of dumping and swinging and we had to call hard caps. I think the scores were all like 11-9 or something. I did pretty well, but by the third game I was having a hard time making game-breaking plays. Then, up steps Chris. He was a monster handling the disc in the third and fourth games. Came from absolutely nowhere to be our MVP for those games. His favorite targets were Jamie and Mandy. He was always finding those two open. He had some great plays on defense. But my favorite play was in the last game. He made a poor decision on a throw, and it got blocked. Except it rebounded off another defender and with super quick reflexes, Chris managed to grab it, turn around, and throw a score. It was just awesome. Katie says she has it on tape. I hope the video captures the magnitude of the play. You know, it's too bad Chris is leaving now, because we could really have a good time playing ultimate together next season.

So, there it is. We finished the tournament 4-0. The only other guys to do that was our friends Andy's team. They just barely beat out Don Clark's team in their final game. I guess that means we'll face them on Thursday. I don't know. We're 4-0 and we played hard, but they were all bottom-tier teams. I don't know that we're any better than Don Clark's team. We're really going to have to bring our A game to win the championship. But our A game just shows up so randomly.

Well, after the game I came home and slept for a long time. My muscles were very tired. And then I've just been chillin' all evening. That's pretty much it, as far as the weekend goes. It's been good.

Posted 04:49 AM | Comments (1)

Orem Ultimate Spring Tourney Video

Here's some video from the four games we played today in the Orem Ultimate Spring tournament. We kicked butt, going 4-0. Of course, we didn't play any of the top teams, so we won't know until Thursday night if we're the best.

Posted 09:47 PM | Comments (1)

Trafalga FHE

Here's some video from FHE last night. Mike, Trudy, Liz, and I all went to Trafalga for some video game, batting cage, and go-kart action. Of course, I don't really know how to hit a baseball, a fact that the video sadly reveals.

Posted 03:54 PM | Comments (1)

Ward Split, Mutual Funds, and Losing the Championship

So here it is, Thursday already and I've written nothing in my journal. Hasn't even really been any time to write. Sunday the wards split. Three wards out of two. The 230th ward is now pretty much anything north of 300 S, except Westbridge. Which means on one hand that we lose Erin and Patrick and Erica and Kristen and Mike (if he ever decides whether or not he's living here or at home). But at least we do get to keep all the cool people in Westbridge. The 229th ward, which we're now in, is basically the rest of us and the south half of the old 229th ward (everything west of 500 W and south of 300 S—basically the Boulders and a bunch of houses). And then they created a new ward with a new Bishopric out of the old 229th ward. Why they didn't make us the new ward beats me. We'll see how things go in time. Right now it's not making any difference in my social life.

As for juicy ward gossip, Mike and Candace have gotten together. Which is just wrong. Kristen is very ticked off at Mike about this. So is Kristen's family. Candace is still 19, after all. Mike's 25. And plus, they all know Mike's character, so they can all see that this doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of working out. [content edited because it's none of your business]

Well, enough about that. I also bought mutual funds this week. My insurance agent had called me into his office for an insurance evaluation, and we got to talking about investing and whatever (he is actually an investor in Corda), and I've been meaning to get into mutual funds sooner or later, so I decided to get started. I figure the market has hit bottom, so it's time to buy. I'm going to invest $250 a month for now. $150 goes into a Roth IRA portfolio. $50 goes into an S&P index fund, than unlike the IRA, I can get to if I have an emergency. And the other $50 goes into a similar bond fund. And the best thing is, it's all automatic withdrawal, so I don't have to think too much about it. And that's what sold me. I think I can get better rates with less fees elsewhere, but I just don't have the time or know-how right now to worry about it.

The only other thing worth mentioning is the championship game tonight. Actually, it ended up being a final four between us, Andy's team, Don Clark's team, and Ring of Fire. I guess they caught on to the fact that our victories on Saturday were against inferior teams. Well, we played Don's team to start with and we got our butts kicked. We had too many people on the team, so we could never get into a groove. At first I was trying to be polite and letting everybody play. But the built up a lead quickly, and I just decided it was time to do something about it. Towards the end there, we really started to make progress, and I really think a lot of it was the fact that I stayed out there for all the points and took over handling. We were down like 14-4 or something, and we scored the next 5 points. But it was too little too late. I blame myself for their last score though. I underestimated Don's throwing abilities and poached my man just a little too much. Had I another step or two on my man, we could have stopped them. But I'm sure we couldn't have stopped them forever. Andy's team then beat them in the championships. By about 2 or 3 points. It was a pretty good game to watch, and Don's team was up for a while, but they've got a lot of inexperience, and that cost them in the end.

Posted 11:51 PM | Comments (1)

Relay For Life

Here's video footage from the "Relay for Life" that our ward particpated in last night / this morning. I've also included a smaller video featuring what will probably be one of the last times the whole BYU 230th ward (as it was before the recent split) gets together at Shanta/Liz/Kristen/Natasha's house.

• Relay For Life (12:34)
• One Last Get-Together for BYU 230th (4:25)

Posted 11:13 PM | Comments (1)

Relay for Life, Sno-Cones, and Single Adult Conferences

This weekend had two main events. First off, the Stake Single Adult conference. I showed up there for dinner on Saturday about 6:30. But it really wasn't as good as I hoped. I mean, there was good food, yes, but the only one there to talk to was Trudy, and even though she's always good for conversation, I just couldn't imagine spending the whole evening with just one person that I know. There were other people to meet, I guess. But it was such a small turnout, and no one really peaked my interest. So I grabbed a schedule of today's event, and went up to Orem High for the Relay for Life.

Now, FYI, this is a project that a girl named Krista in our ward (er, former ward), who had cancer a few years back, is in charge of. And thus, she's made a lot of other people in our ward in charge of various things. So it's been advertised for the last five months straight. The point of the whole thing is to get people to donate money to Cancer research by having them pledge a certain amount of money for every lap your team runs. And then your team runs and runs all night long—for like 20 or so hours. Our ward had two different teams: a competitive team, that is actually trying to beat other teams, and a non-competitive team that just walks or jogs or whatever it wants. The key is to just keep going all night.

I've never been much of a runner, so I didn't sign up for this thing, which is something that I feel kind of guilty about now, because they really needed some runners in the wee hours of the morning, and I couldn't jump on because I didn't sign up. Actually, I ran a few laps for them anyways—in sandals, which was a stupid thing to do to my shins. But I was mostly here for the social factor, and the fact that they wanted to use my projector to show a movie in the middle of the night. When I got there, it was just getting dark, and they stopped the relay for half an hour to do this ceremony with a talk and a bunch of candles lit up and stuff. At this point, things already looked bad for our competitive team. There was one team that was obviously better than us, with lots of long distance runners, and to make up for this Patrick and Megan decided to do wind sprints. This burned Patrick out way too quickly and he was cramping up. On top of that, it made the other team mad and they just started running harder. In the meantime, I distracted myself with a lot of Frisbee playing. Lori and I threw for a while and I taught her how to throw a forehand. We also flew a kite for a while. Then I went off and joined a very laid-back Frisbee game, while a lot of people entertained themselves with really bad karaoke. This lasted until midnight, when we started the movie down at our team's campsite (which, by the way, was fantastically decorated as a tropical island—apparently there's some decorating contest, and apparently our team was robbed on account of some sort of politics). A number of people watched at first, but by the end, everybody had left to socialize or sleep. Let's see...who was there? Kristen and Andy (the two of whom stayed together pretty much all night—funny thing was Andy walked around the track with his accordion like at 4:00 in the morning, waking everybody up). Liz, Lori, Michele, Shanta, Melinda, the other Liz, Patrick, Megan (Erin's in D.C. for an IHS seminar—I want to go :( ), Dave, Tony, Mike (for a little while, of course not running). Lots of other people showed up as well, like Trudy in the morning, walking with her dog (actually, I have some cute video of she and her dog sliding down the giant inflatable slide). People just came and went throughout the night. I took Patrick home about 2:00, because he couldn't find his keys, and I went to sleep myself. Then I came back about 8:30 in the morning, mostly to pick up my things. But I ended up doing some laps, as I said, in sandals. Everyone was dead tired. For example Kristen, who had gone home around 6:00, somehow felt guilty about leaving, and came back to run some more. I felt guilty about leaving them as well, but it was Frisbee time. So you see, I had to leave. Anyways, they finished in second place, 25 laps behind the first place team.

After Ultimate this afternoon I did something a little bold. You see, there's this girl named Laura who plays with us. I guess she's been gone, because I hadn't seen her in a while. But I do remember she's tried to talk to me in the past, and then the last few times at pickup I've been looking at her and thinking she's kind of cute. I like her hair (what is it about me and thick, long, black, curly hair). And she's a pretty good athlete. So when I noticed her lingering around after pickup today, I decided to ask her out for sno-cones. I did this discreetly, of course. Don't want to upset the social balance of us Frisbee players :). Her car was parked next to mine, so as we were getting in our cars to leave, I asked her if she wanted sno-cones. But it was kind of a hasty thing, and as soon as I said this I started having a sneaking suspicion that maybe she's married. I mean, I honestly didn't know. It would have been embarrassing. So I was worrying about this as she's following me in her car. Also, I had no idea where a sno-cone place was. Fortunately the one right by King Henry was open, so we went there. And through a series of indirect questions I determined that no, she wasn't married, and that yes, she's quite attractive. She's from Iowa, but doesn't know Mark, so I'm thinking they're from different parts or something. Only problem is she's young. I don't know how young, but I'm thinking from the fact she's a senior, she's probably 21 right now. Hmmm. She intrigues me though. Maybe I'll have to ask her out.

From there, I rushed home, showered, and headed off to the stake single adult conference. I attended two sessions—one on developing workout routine, and another on dance. The dance one is what I was really looking forward to. It was supposed to be ballroom dance. But the instructor decided to do country dance instead, on account of the fact that 1) they're similar and 2) nobody around here does ballroom socially—it's all country. So I was a little disappointed, but it was still fun. I think I figured a few things out. Like twirling and stuff. But I've got a long ways to go before I can actually feel comfortable leading someone out on the dance floor. One really disturbing thing was when we started doing some country dance routines to "Men in Black." It just didn't seem right.

Anyways, from there we went over to Kristen's for a dinner she was throwing. It was a blast. Basically all the same faces from the Relay from Life, so most everyone was exhausted. This made the partying all the more hilarious. Melinda can be a riot—I didn't know this before. The food was great. Chicken Parmesan. I supplied the chicken, they cooked it. I figure that's a pretty good deal. And then we watched "The Kid." Actually, Melinda, Megan, and I lobbied hard for "Life is Beautiful." But we were outvoted. I did end up liking "The Kid" more than I was expecting, though. It had a pretty high cuteness factor. The hilarious moment of the night came when Kristen walked into the room and Candace quickly told Andy to cuddle with her. Kristen totally freaked out. Candace really knows how to push her sister's buttons.

Posted 11:54 PM | Comments (1)