The Last 18 Days

So, I've succumbed to the Swine Flu, N1H1, the Evil Piggy, Rotten Bacon...call it what you will, it suuucks.  I've never been sick for so long in my life!   Luckily, I am able to work from home...so that's taken up most of my down time.  But being cooped up for so long has not been fun.  I now appreciate going to work, working from home is just too monotonous, not to mention it's fun associating with people at work, makes the day interesting.

The flu started out as a little cough, then came the chills and aches, then the cough got bad.  I absolutely hate going to the doctor, but with all the "Swine Flu" hype, I decided I probably should.  So the next day I went to the doctor, which took about 4 hours.  He had me breathe in this tube for 10 minutes, said I have a 102 degree fever, then told me I needed to get tested for N1H1.  Thanks doc.   Went to where they told me to go and it was closed!  That was frustrating, and on top of that I really just wanted to be home in bed. So I went back to the Doc and told them it was closed.  They gave me a new set of directions, and after about 20 minutes of searching I found the lab.  The lab gave me some papers, and told me I needed to go to the hospital to get the test.  Super annoyed at this point, I got to the hospital and waited for the Swine Flu tester (can't remember her official title), she finally showed up and took me to a little room.  Next, I had to hold my head sideways as she put a sucker rod up one of my nostrils and squirt some liquid in the other nostril.  Well, apparently she wasn't getting enough "juice", so she jammed the rod even higher...that's when I heard a little popping noise and tears started gushing down my face.  Ouch.  She finally pulled the rod out and the blood came flowing. It was almost like she didn't even notice.  But hey, she was kind enough to give me a tissue.  I was then told that they would let me know the test results in 24 hrs.  4 days later they called and told me I "probably" had the Swine Flu.  So anyway, not too impressed with the doctors/labs/hostipal, once again.

So it's day 18 now and I'm feelin pretty good, just a cough left.  I even went out to a Jazz game Friday night with some friends, it was so nice getting out of the house.  Only thing now is falling asleep...the past 3 or 4 nights I haven't been able to sleep at night, and I'm not taking medicine anymore, so maybe it's the side effects of not being on medication.  Who knows?

Aaand that's a wrap.  I hope you don't get the Swine Flu!

The Travel (B)log

These are some of the places I've been fortunate enough to visit over the past year.  I love to travel and see/experience different parts of the world.  I have seen a lot of BEAUTIFUL places, but I always come back realizing how fortunate I am to have been raised the way I was, with a good LDS family that fostered good values and provided a safe and comfortable upbringing.  I vividly remember returning from my mission in Russia to our house in Mesa, AZ thinking that we live like royalty.  We really DO!  I didn't understand what I did to deserve such a life.  I will forever be grateful for such a blessing.

Hawaii (oahu), April 2008 – Jordan Hatch, Cameron Bendixon, Jarom Christiansen – lives up to the hype, awesome geography, pristine mountains, everyone speaks english, expensive.  Why didn’t I go to BYU Hawaii?

Havasupai, July 2008 – a bunch o people – have to see it to believe it.  Oasis in the middle of a rock, cool water color, and watch out for locals that cut your hammock down while your sleeping.

Western Caribbean Cruise, Nov. 2008 - (Miami, FL, Rotan, Honduras, Belize, Cozumel, Great Stirrup Cay Bahamas) – Amy Nelson, Curtis Quattrin, Ricky Hacking, Richard Oto, Emily Streed – Rotan: watch out for guides trying to make a quick buck, very 3^rd world.  Beautiful landscape.  Belize: wanted to spend more time there, cave tubing was spectacular and so was the jungle.  Don’t eat the fresh fruit too fast (broke my 10 year no-throwup record). Cozumel: great island for diving, and riding around on scooters in the rain.  Great Stirrup Cay: crystal clear water…and that’s about it.

Russia (St. Petersburg, Moscow, Samara Mission), Arpil 2009 – Brigham Barr, Rich Millar, Ryan McCook.  St. Petersburg is cool, lots of preserved history, the streets are a giant modeling runway.  Moscow: big and dirty.  Red square is cool, Stalin’s tomb is creepy.  Taxi rides are expensive. Watch your back.  Samara mission: what happened to all the members??  Everyone now has cell phones.  Strange to be there not wearing a name tag.  Still love Marx.  Shashliki are still delicious.  And Russian train rides still make for interesting and entertaining stories. 

Subway, Zion UT, June 2009 – big group o people, hiking and swimming through narrow slot canyons.  Easy to get lost.  “subway” part of it is cool.

Havasupai, July 2009 – a bunch o people – flood of '08 reshaped a lot of land and waterfalls.  Sad that Navajo falls is now extinct.

Washington State, August 2009 (click here)

Puerto Rico, August 2009 – Adam Eschenroder, Lance (Ray) Nelson, Ricky Hacking – stay tuned for a post.

The 10 word book review

So, I've been into reading lately. Not hard core, but I enjoy a good book. After all, "Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body." ~ Joseph Addison. Yeah, Joe said it, and I believe it.

So here is a list of books I've read this year and a 10 word summary of each:

Ender’s Game - Cool book, super nerdy, innocent kid wipes out alien race
Surviror’s Club - Fall out of plane? Can live. Amazing unbelievable survival stories
Train to Potevka - Russian trains, never know what to expect. Took me back.
City of Theives - Russians survive the unthinkable in WWII, watch the bad language.
Speaker for the Dead (Ender 2) - Cool book, super nerdy, guy tries to save alien race
The Shack - How to describe it in 10 words? Wouldn't do justice.
The Shack (I'll try again) - Very unique, only book I'd consider reading again, besides scripts.
Kite Runner (currently reading) - Good, but will there ever be restitution? Don't be racist.

The Kalaloch (Claylock) Special - UPDATED

I spent last weekend in Washington. Wow, Washington is a GIANT forest! I never knew so many trees could exist (yeah, grew up in AZ, went to school in Idaho, and now live in UT...so I'm kind of sheltered from the tree scene). It was an awesome time! I'm going to finish this post a little later...but I just had to post this video, always wanted to do this:



Ok, resuming this post finally:

I flew into WA Wednesday, August 12 and met up with my buddy Alex Bean and his wife Megan, who is also my cousin. We ate some Mexican food together and afterwards Alex and I played basketball with some of his friends for the rest of the night. The next morning I woke up and drove over to Snoquami Falls.

The lookout over the waterfall was pretty cool, but I was a bit frustrated that all I could do was look at it. I wanted to explore. On my way out I saw this inconspicuous trailhead…upon further investigation I found out that it DID go down to the river. The hike down was fun, I felt like a kid at Disneyland trying to see if I could find shortcuts off the trailhead, all the while amazed at how the green could literally cover every inch of earth.

Next stop was Pikes Place in downtown Seattle. Downtown was cool, and I was lucky enough to get to Pikes Place as they were putting on a show for the crowd.

There was a LOT of people there. I can’t imagine going to that market just to pick up some fresh fish or fruit, it was total chaos!

After that I just walked the streets of downtown and picked up some lunch at a little known place some locals recommended - subway. Delicious.

Then I took a drive to Kalaloch, which is about 4 hours straight east of Seattle. The drive itself was beautiful, but I couldn’t wait to finally get there. Kalaloch is right on the coast and pretty close to Forks (for all you Twilight fans, I'm not). This is where I met up with Andria and her family.

They were awesome. They threw a surprise beach-themed birthday party for me the first night. Compliments to everyone for a great b-day surprise! Rachel even made some experimental chocomallow death blow pie, which was a hit.

I even got a sweet mustache set for every day of the week:We soon realized it worked better as a uni-brow, and dang I make it look good:

This tree came straight from Harry Potter:
And this is right before I crushed poor Walker...

The beach just below the campsite was awesome...so we did our fair share of standard beach activities:

Yes, the water was COLD...but well worth the dipAll in all the trip was awesome and I'm glad I got the opportunity to go (thanks Andria!). Sunday morning Andria, Gavin (her bro-in-law) and I drove back to the airport. I had about 6 hours to burn before my flight, and I hate waiting around at the airport, so I busted out the trusty GPS and looked up some nearby parks to visit. One park was just some cool hiking trails, and then I went to Des Moines Beach Park right off the Puget Sound. It was super cool...

And that's all! Oh, took this shot from the plane out of Washington...not sure what mountain it is but it was kinda cool...

Fall 09 V-ball - The Marshmallow Mateys

It's that time again...Fall V-ball. I enjoy the competition of being on a league...sure winning is nice, but the competitive drive that make the game fun is even better. This year's run at the cup will be in Orem's Division A League. This will hopefully be redemption from last year's bust season. I've put together a semi-pro team, here's the lineup:

Lauren Layton
Michelle Nixon
Maren Decker
Jenni Appel
Stacie Appel
Aaron Saxton
Mike Boehm
and...myself

Our team name is Marshmallow Mateys. I must have been hungry when I thought of it (even though Oh's are my favorite cereal right now). So I whipped up this here logo at work today. I had to create a logo on a competitor's DIY logo design tool, to see how it stacks up against ours. It's nothin fancy but I'm sure it will strike fear in our competition. Here's to a good season...

The Baron let me down...

So I'm a BIG fan of Red Baron's Classic Crust Special Deluxe pizza (RBCCSD). I probably burn through about 2 a week. Only problem is, they are kinda expensive if you don't find them on sale. Well, I didn't find them on sale last time I was grocery shopping at Smiths. The Baron offers quite a range of "just heat and eat" (I JUST made that up) products, and I figured if the pizza is so satisfying, then their other products would be the same. So I stocked up on some Red Baron Singles Flatbread Melts (Meat Trio). Here is what I got...

As you can see from the box, they look freakin good, but what the Baron doesn't tell you is that there are actually two suprises that come with every flatbread melt:

1. Deliciousness.

2. THEY'RE FUN SIZED!

I feel the same way you do, the Baron uncharacteristically let me down. These little teasers...

Baron, what do you have to say?

La "The" Mona Rope Swing

So last weekend we got a group together to re-visit the Mona rope swing. SOOPER FUN. One thing I love about Provo are the summers, tons to do in the outdoors and the weather is about perfect. Only thing missing is a beach. Here is our latest escapade:

Cue the storytelling voice (it was late when I wrote this)...

Nestled in the quaint little town of Mona, UT lies a small pond, and at that pond met a great group of friends. And within that group of friends were some risk takers. "What's to risk at a peaceful little pond" some asked. That's when one of them pointed to something flying in the distance...was it a bird? A plane? "No, that's a Mona local doing a triple gainer off a 50 ft. rope swing".

And so it began, the annual trip to Mona rope swing. Here is some footage of last year's festivities...



Here are some pics from this last weekend:

This is when Zach flew into the tree:


I figured out how to do these cool color effects on my camera. Richard, Amy, Ricky, and JaNae waiting their turn.


Doubles. This dangerous trick was unheard of before Ricky and I.


Actually doing it is more of a mental game, as seen here by Rod's face:


And you thought Asians couldn't swing?


Air. Nike Air.

And that's all folks...stay tuned until next year.