Steve Peper

MIAMI- The Food

2011-11-06T18:35:00.000-08:00

I love experiencing and trying new things! While I was in Miami I decided that I wanted to try some new food! Here are the things I can now check off my list:

Frog Legs- (the first picture is of me holding a frog leg) I have always heard that frog legs tasted like chicken. Well, they do in fact. They were good, until I got down to the bone. After I ate the meat off enough that I could actually grasp the bone I noticed that the bone was EXTREMELY sticky. I don't even know how to explain the stickiness of these bones. It was worse then any glue that I have spilt on my fingers. It was so sticky that I couldn't even wash it off with an ice cube. It kind of grossed me out enough that I didn't want to eat very many. All-in-all, frog legs get an "eh" rating

Stone Crab- I have had crab before and love crab but have never had stone crab or heard of it, that I know of. I'm not sure if it is endemic to the florida area but it supposedly is only in season for a few months. We got there the week the season started! You crab connoisseurs may know this but when you order stone crab they only bring out the front claws. However, those front claws are enormous! The shell is also the thickest shell I have ever seen and is probably why the claws came pre-cracked. They also served it cold which was a new crab experience, one that I liked! All-in-all, I loved stone crab! Probably my favorite crab now!

Cuban Food- There are a ton of Cubans in florida and thus a ton of Cuban food places. The Cuban food was REALLY good, however, I made the mistake of ordering french fries instead of the rice. After ordering the fries my waitress (probably a pure cuban) paused, looked at me, and with attitude said "you want fries?" It kind of caught me off guard but said yyyyees. "Your at a cuban restaurant and you want fries instead of rice?" I wanted to bring up the point that they WERE on the menu. Perhaps she knew that we were trying to get the "cuban experience" and was just trying to encourage me to get the rice. Either way I stayed with my fries but feared that my waitress was going to put in an order of "special fries", if you catch my drift =} When the fries came out I gave them a careful look over, and for the record, they were probably some of the best fries that I have ever had!!

Alligator- Being in florida, gator land, I figured I HAD to try some alligator! Another item you always hear tastes like chicken. Again, I would agree that it does taste like chicken, however a chewy chicken. It came as deep fried gator nuggets. They were good though! Perhaps McDonalds should look into switching over =) And no, this is not a picture of the gator I ate. It wasn't like red lobster where you can go pick out the lobster you want from the tank.

Don Shula's- This last one was not an exotic place but more of the experience. My friend who I went down there with, as I mentioned before, is a big miami dolphins fan. WEll, Don Shula is a famous coach in dolphins history. He apparently has a steak house in miami built around his dolphins. Jeff really wanted to go and since I love steak I agreed. Since it was built around a football team we were thinking that it was going to be like a sports bar type of thing. Oh man were we wrong. My first clue came when we were driving to find the place and we realized that it was located inside of a hotel. Locations inside of hotels are never good, price-wise that is. My second clue came when were trying to find a place to park. There were NO parking places anywhere. It wasn't really that all of the spots were full, there just weren't any. We noticed that there was a valet so we asked them where the parking was and they informed us that the valet was the only way to park. But they insured us not to worry because the valet parking for Shula's was complementary. Oh yeah right, don't worry! I started sweating bullets. When we finally made our way into the restaurant the lights were dimly lit and everyone inside of the restaurant were dressed all fancy sipping wine. We were wearing jeans, however, with somewhat nice button down shirts. Nonetheless I still felt WAY under dressed. The menu was then handed to us on an autographed, handpainted football. There were no prices and my next big clue was when they brought around a cart with the differing meats on them. They explained each of the meats and then we picked which we wanted. Everything was a la cart which meant things started adding up if we wanted anything beside the meat. The place looked so fancy and I felt so out of place that I was afraid to order "pop" thinking that they might correct me and say "do you mean a chilled, treacle, carbonated beverage?" I honestly, for the first time in my life, felt like white trash. It didn't help that after the waiter brought us bread, I looked up and Jeff had butter hanging off of his nose =] Yeah, we fit right in!! I guess I thought the first time that I would go to a fancy restaurant like that it would be on a date and not with Jeff. Oh well, it was still quite the experience!!

I was reminded by Kelly and Mom that I did not include what the Shula experience cost me. I was planning on doing that, I just forgot. What we ordered: 2 steaks, 1 side of mashed potatoes, and jeff got a caesars salad. Take a guess what you think the price would be... It actually did turn out to be less than I thought it was going to be.... Oh, as you are taking a guess on the price, I forgot to mention that almost every time that someone (waiter, hostess, manager, whoever) came by the table they keep asking us if we wanted any wine. The first time that they asked we explained that we don't drink but they kept asking, and asking, and asking. As we kept refusing they actually seemed like they were getting upset that we wouldn't order any. Oh well.
Perhaps it doesn't sound like much to you guys but the total came out to be about $150. I thought it was insane, but I was expecting around $200. It was probably the water that we ordered that sent it over the top...

MIAMI- The Adventure

2011-11-05T11:28:00.000-07:00

The first thing that I want you guys to know from this blog post is that I am trying to singlehandedly (with your help =) put Priceline.com out of business. If you take ANYTHING away from this post, please NEVER use Priceline again. I want to destroy them!!! Yes, this may sound a little sadistic but I have had enough of them. Yes, I am angry and yes, I apparently hold grudges so I am going to get this off of my chest and complain in this post! Let me begin by going back a few months...

When I was in North Dakota this summer I had to book hotels several times as I traveled across the state. I often had to book them on my own credit card and get reimbursed later, which didn't bother me. I tried my best to find the cheapest hotels so I could save grant money for continued use later (like I just did to go back out to ND this past weekend. But anyways, I digress). I have always seen these obnoxious commercials on TV with William Shatner for priceline. For some reason I thought I would give them a try. So I booked a hotel and priceline took the money right out of my account. When I checked out of the hotel I noticed that the hotel charged me for the stay as well. After SEVERAL phone calls, to both the hotel and priceline, I discovered that priceline never sent the hotel the money after I booked my stay. My bank filed a credit dispute with priceline and were able to refund my account but it took a while.

Around the same time that I booked that hotel stay I also booked my Miami trip. I used priceline because at the time I did not realize the headache that was ahead of me. I booked a hotel, flight, and rental car all through priceline. Let the adventure of my Miami trip begin...

I booked my flight out to Miami for a thursday night after my last class. I planed my flight to be at the airport about an hour and a half before the flight left. I was going to hit the road right after my comparative anatomy lab. Of course, that day happened to be the longest lab of the entire semester so I got started a little late. After I made it onto the road I of course hit some of the worst traffic ever and the weather was horrible. My hour and a half window quickly was fading away. By the time I got to the airport and found a place to park I had about 40 minutes before my flight left. I parked in the extended lot and so I tried waiting for a shuttle to come get me and take to to the terminal. As I was trying to find a parking spot I saw 3-4 shuttles driving around the lot but as I was waiting there were none in sight. After about 10 minutes of not seeing a shuttle I decided that I just needed to run for it so I booked it! I made it to the ticket check in with about 10 to spare, obviously not enough time. Apparently the ticket agent people had just left and they stop checking people in 20 minutes before the flight. I MISSED MY FLIGHT!! So with no agent to talk to about getting on the next available flight I had to call the airline. They said that since I booked the flight through pricleline they were not allowed to put me on the next flight =[ So after many more phone calls I realized that I had to buy a one way ticket on the next flight to miami. So in the end I had to buy 2 tickets. The one-way ticket cost as much as my round trip. Oh well, it was my fault for not giving myself enough time to get to the airport. That was the flight.

My friend Jeff made his flight so as I was sitting in Pittsburgh waiting for my flight the next morning, he was in Miami trying to pick up our rental car. Well, the rental car company that priceline used to book our car apparently ran out of cars... Even with a confirmation number ... True, part of the blame rests with Payless (the rental car company) but priceline guaranteed us a car and they need to be responsible for the companies that they do business with. Since we had no car, Jeff had to take a cab to the hotel and the next morning the concierge helped him actually get a car. Again, since priceline guaranteed us a car, I called them and asked if they would cover any extra charges that we had to pay that was more than what we had originally agreed with priceline for. They said, "oh no, we can't do that. The best we can do is cancel your reservation." Are you kidding me? I think my reservation was canceled when they ran out of cars!! So the bottom line, the policy that priceline obviously stands for is "If you, the costumer, screws up, you get screwed. If we, priceline, screw up, the costumer still gets screwed!"

The most recent incident with priceline is with a receipt. As mentioned earlier I booked a flight to go out to ND through priceline (again, before I realized how horrible they are). I did it on my own card again and am planning to submit my receipt to get refunded. After booking my flight priceline sent me several emails with my itinerary and a summary of the charges they made. However, they only sent me a "summary" of charges. None of the emails were an actual receipt, proof that my card was charged. The school obviously needs that proof that it was my card that they charged before they refund me the money. So I called priceline and explained what I was looking for. They said they would send me an email with a receipt. The email came and it was the same thing I already had, the summary. I tried emailing the costumer service department and explained that I needed an ACTUAL receipt and they emailed me the stupid summary again. I called back and finally got a hold of someone who said that they can not give me an actual receipt, they can only provide the "summary". I asked if they had a record/document of them taking the money out of my account, they said yes, of course. So I said, great! Send me a copy of that document. Oh, no, they can't do that. AAAHHHHHHH......

Anyways, here are a few pictures of the hotel we stayed at in Miami. It had a great view and was right by the beach! The hotel was really nice, 4 stars I believe, but as it turns out I prefer the not super nice hotels. Something like Hampton Inn. Really nice hotels rip you off. They charge you for internet, they charge you $12 for a belgium waffle that you can make for free at other hotels, and as it turns out, they charge you $20 a night to park. But again, the view was really nice!

Ok, I believe that my complaining is out of the way. My next posts will be about the activities and food of Miami!

MIAMI- The Main Event

2011-10-25T18:09:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I headed down to Miami for a little vacation. It was QUITE the adventure, but I'll get to that in my next couple posts. I figured I would start with the main reason that I went down there, to see my Denver Broncos play the miami dolphins. Most of you probably wont find this interesting but... Years ago my friend Jeff and I said that the next time that our teams play each other (he is a huge dolphins fan) we would go to the game. It just so happened that it was this year in Miami. We made plans months ago and the time finally came!

It also happened to be the game that Tim Tebow (probably the most controversial quarterback in the NFL right now) started for the first time this season. I couldn't stand him in college for some reason. Don't ask me why, I have no idea, I just didn't. So when Josh McDaniel (the man who singlehandedly set our team back 5 years by trading away all of our talent for nothing. In my opinion, the devil to the Broncos organization.) traded up in the draft to draft Tim Tebow in the first round last year, I found myself forced to begin liking him. I've been coming around and the LAST 5 minutes of Sundays game definitely helped. However, during warmups Tebow did not look good at all. Kyle Orton look MUCH better. Tebow played like crap in the first 3 3/4 of the game but definitely stepped it up when it counted. The game went from being one of the worst games I have ever seen to probably one of the best, most exciting games I have ever seen. And to top it off, WE WON!!! As Aunt Laurie said, it is safe to say that my curse is over!!

The game was SOOOO hot. I was completely soaked with sweat by the end of the first quarter and got extremely sun burnt, but , it was worth it! There was a dolphins fan that sat next to me who kept chanting "suck for luck" because he wants the dolphins to just tank the rest of their season so they can draft Andrew Luck in the draft. He was a nice guy, we talked through the whole game and he was giving me high fives during our comeback. It was pretty funny. The rest of the stadium chanted "Tebow Sucks" several times throughout the game, which was interesting since they erupted in cheers for him when he went onto the field for the first time (florida is Tebow land since he played college ball at florida university). Probably half the jerseys worn in the stadium were Tebow jerseys. Half way through the fourth quarter probably half the stadium started leaving and then when Tebow started bringing us back the crowd, that was left, started chanting "Tebow, Tebow, Tebow!!" Hypocrites! Kelly quoted Tebow in one of her posts so I thought I would share one that I liked as I was reading a recap of the game. "You can't lose confidence in yourself, or you've lost already."

Pregame. Our kickers. Prater, who is the place kicker killed me this week in fantasy football when he missed his first 2 attempts during the game.

Tebow Warming up

Orton warming up

Dolphins cheerleaders. I know how much mom likes cheerleaders so I thought SHE might enjoy the pictures of the cheerleaders =]

Von Miller. Our first round draft pick from this year. A GREAT addition to the team. Perhaps the defensive rookie of the year!!

Champ! Future hall of famer and the jersey that I have and wore to the game

'Jan Levinson' from 'The Office' sang then national anthem. I thought you office fans might appreciate these!

The captains

Dumervil, one of my favorite players!

Tebows first huddle.

Orton (who I like) and Brady Quinn (who was one of the disasters from josh mcdaniels. He traded Peyton Hillis who is now one of the NFL's best running backs to get Quinn who is a third string QB)

Jeff and Me after the game!

Jali Videos

2011-10-02T11:26:00.000-07:00

Well, in the last couple times that I spent with Jali, along with the hundreds of pictures I took, I took a bunch of videos. Not sure if you guys would enjoy these or not but I sure do so I thought I would post a couple of them =) I wish we had taken more videos from when she was younger and full of energy. Like when TJ and I were out back with Cooper (Kelly's rabbit) outside of her cage and mom let Jali out the back door. That was a chaotic moment. Probably the fastest I have ever seen Jali move.

Towards the end of her life Jali became a con artist! She learned that ever time she went outside she would get a treat. I have a feeling she exploited me the most with that. Like I mentioned earlier, I was a sucker for spoiling her and giving her treats.

These next 3 were actually one longer one but I broke them down because it wouldn't load. I loved the way she ate! She would always have a wet beard after drinking and would smear it all over me. She is the only girl I will ever love with a beard :}

Just a couple more pictures. I controlled my self from adding 80 more =}

Jalapeno Peper

2011-09-25T17:18:00.000-07:00

Well, I've been wanting to to a post on my beloved dog, Jalapeno (Jali) Peper, for a while now but it has been a little hard for me to actually sit down and do it. I miss my dog so much that it still makes my heart ache to think that she will not be home the next time I go back to Indiana. I'll miss kissing her cheeks and spoiling her! I had a tendency of giving her a few extra treats or saving her a good piece of steak from dinner :) She really liked that! We would spend hours together when I was home. She would always sit on my chest as I watched tv or took a nap! She was the love of my life!

I'm not the biggest fan of 'cliches' but Jali truly was this mans best friend! =) I don't know who all knows this but except for the second half of my senior year I really didn't enjoy high school. I was EXTREMELY shy back then and didn't seem to fit in anywhere. I didn't really have any 'good' friends. Because of that I spent almost every friday night at home in front of the tv or something. Well, Jali always had a way of finding her way onto my lap whenever I was feeling down or lonely and she always picked my spirits up!!

She was with our family for nearly 16 years! We got her on TJ's 10th birthday (22 Dec. 1995) and then she was put to rest on 4 Aug. 2011. Though I know it was hard for dad to do, I am truly grateful that he was able to do it and do it at home where she was comfortable.

After we moved to Indiana, Jali made a special friend with Ann who worked with Dad. Ann also worked at the kennel that Jali would stay at if mom and dad were out of town. Ann, and her daughter, took great care of Jali and even spoiled her! She was just such a lovable dog!

Well, I have A TON of pictures because I was ALWAYS taking picture of her and with her. These are just a few of them. (As I have mentioned before, I HATE this blogger thing and can not figure out how to easily move pictures around and stuff. Because of that they are all down in a straight line so it will be a LONG post. Sorry)

Napping!

She looks pretty small so I'm guessing this was shortly after we got her.

TJ and me with Jali

The 5 little Pepers and Jali

Kelly

Missing Lynny

With the Dad

I love these next two pictures. Brynn and Jali just not quite sure of each other =)

Tyler

At Kellys. Kelly wanted me to go visit her but I couldn't leave Jali (mom and dad were out of town) so she let me bring her along!!

I love how Jali and Dylan are looking at each other!

With Dad

The last few months I would find Jali in some funny sleeping positions.

The cutest dog ever!

Like I said, the cutest dog ever! =]

She wasn't the biggest fan of loud noises. Here she is hiding after the smoke alarm went off.

I love this picture of her with Dylan!

She spent many hours trying to escape from the madness of the little kids during our family get-togethers.

This was one of the times she wasn't feeling well.

Looks like TJ's birthday

Another funny position

And another

and another

This was after she was attacked by our neighbors dog. The neighbors dog was lucky I was away at school.

Did I mention she was the cutest dog!

Another funny position

Napping

I think this one is funny because she looks guilty of something

People always think that I put her on that pillow but in reality I left it on the floor and she ended up finding it and made herself comfortable. Such a spoiled dog!

On mom and dads bed

Our classic position

Back when she was young, playing with TJ

I'll always remember this. I had just gotten back from scout camp that day and was exhausted so I crashed on the couch, surprisingly without Jali on me. When I woke up there she was sleeping on my face. I actually woke up because she had worked herself in so tight next to me that she was making it a little hard to breath (I think her paws were across my throat). Totally worth it =}

With Dad

Katy and Jack

If I remember correctly this was the morning Lynny left for College

I LOVE this picture of mom and Jali

The day I got back from my mission. I remember dad wanted to run an experiment when I got back and he had me stand on the driveway (I believe next to him) and then someone put her down on the driveway to see who she would go to. After 2 years, she went straight to me!!

TJ showing Jali where I was on my mission

Very Young Jali

With Katy

With Kelly

I love this picture but can't find the original so it is pore quality

When I was allowed or when I could sneak her away, this is how she would sleep with me!

STUCK!!! And more...

2011-07-19T16:05:00.000-07:00

WARNING! Long post with lots of pictures.

First I would like to share with you the story of how I got stuck in some mud for nearly 45 MINUTES!!! Yep, stuck good. I was out doing one of my beaver/otter surveys where I walk 500 meters along the banks of rivers. I had just finished one side of a bridge and was going to cross under the bridge to survey the other side. Right before I got to the bridge I noticed this little drainage ditch (probably 6 inches wide or so) but water was flowing through it so I figured I would 'hop' across it as to not get my boots wet by the water....

That didn't quit work out. As you might be able to see in some of these pictures I managed one foot across the drainage ditch and felt it sinking into the mud. (Mind you, before you accuse me of being an idiot for jumping into mud!, I have crossed under dozens of bridges like this this summer and they pretty much all looked like this. The mud that you see is typically a hard dirt/ground and not mud so I wasn't expecting anything different) Right as I felt my one foot going under I tried to 'quick step' my way out of a muddy situation (pun attended =) but as my next 2 steps hit I sank all the way down, right up to my knees. This was the worst mud I have ever experienced. It WAS INSANE. I honestly could not move. I could feel the weight of the mud pressing down on top of my feet. I tried and I tried to pull my legs out but they just were not moving. I eventually had to radio Jesse over from the other side of the river to come help me out. He found some flood debris laying under the bridge (the big log I am holding) and threw that to me to try to work myself out. I felt like the zebra from 'The Swiss Family Robinson' movie. Remember that scene? :}

He also tossed some bigger rocks over for me to balance on once I got a limb out. He also tested the mud around me to see how close he could get to help. Wouldn't you know I landed in probably the ONLY spot under the bridge that sent you right under...

Even when my foot was almost out, it was extremely hard to get it out. That mud was insane. It is really hard for me to try to explain how bad it was.

So after about 30-45 minutes of struggling, tiring myself out I managed to free myself!! I was SOOO exhausted when I got out. I also was extremely muddy as I'm sure you could imagine =] so I pretty much ended up sitting in the river to wash the mud off. Good times!!

Yesterday the four of us out here headed down to Mount Rushmore and Devils Tower for a little vacation. It was BEAUTIFUL!! The Black Hills are amazing. I almost didn't want to come back to North Dakota after seeing eastern Wyoming and eastern South Dakota. But here I am. Back in ND...

This is Devils Tower (in Wyoming). I guess the tower you see is the lava from the inside of an old volcano. The volcano part has since eroded away and just left the lava that hardened in the tub. There are several native american stories as to how it was formed but the most 'accepted' was that of a bear clawing at the sides leaving the streaky look.

A little prairie dog. The girls called it 'cute and squishy', Jesse and I called it 'target practice' =}

Just a bunch more pictures of DT

These next few are from Mount Rushmore (in South Dakota)

Washington

Jefferson

Roosevelt

Lincoln

I get carried away with digital cameras so there are a lot of pictures. These are just a fraction of what I took.

This last one is from the program they do at night when they light up the faces. Couldn't get a good picture with the lighting and in all reality, they were not as lit up as I thought they would be.

These last few are of a snake I found (almost stepped on) while doing one of our surveys.

Jesse and the snake. Size comparison.

I am pretty sure that it is a King Snake. If there are any experts out there feel free to correct me if I am wrong...

Just a couple bird pictures. As it turns out, flying birds are really hard to get a good picture of :]

Oh, one more thing. If your still reading this! I had 2 firsts in the eating world today. I ate moose (moose burger) for the first time and I also ate road kill for the first time! The moose was the road kill. One of the game wardens out here got the meat off of the road killed moose (not sure how long it was road kill for before he slaughtered it. Not sure I want to know... =] But it really was good. I haven't had many wild game meats but moose is my favorite thus far.

Pictures From ND

2011-07-08T19:06:00.000-07:00

Here are some random pictures..

This is a beaver that we saw while doing one of our surveys. I snuck up on him while walking on the shore (he was probably 10 yards in front of me). He smacked the water with his tail, as beavers often do, to try to scare me, which he did because I was looking down at the ground. He then starting swimming in the water right in front of me for 15 minutes.

This was probably the biggest bird I have ever seen. We think it is a juvenile bald eagle. It was bigger than any bald eagle I have ever seen. We also thought maybe it was a golden eagle. I'm no bird expert...

This was a big storm I could see from the trailer. Just thought the cloud was neat looking.

Some pictures of the trailer I live in when I am not in a hotel. It is very messy because we have a lot of stuff/gear and as you can see, very little room :}

View from the kitchen to the bedroom.

Where I have been sleeping.

The bathroom where the toilet doesn't flush the shower has no curtain and no hot water works (anywhere in the trailer)...

The kitchen.

The trailer.

A pelican that was gliding down the river with us as we were canoeing.

These next two are some pictures of the obstructions we have been facing as we are canoeing down the rivers. (for all of you who might be thinking "oh, he gets to CANOE for his work. How fun and relaxing!!" FALSE. These have been some of the most tiring and exhausting days. We spent 9 hours on the river yesterday. We have to keep getting out to survey sites on the bank and the banks are pure mud so we are constantly slipping and falling and getting covered in mud... You've heard of 'quick sand' well here it is 'quick mud')

Anyways, back to the pictures. We are constantly coming across these fallen trees (mainly from the bank eroding away and them falling into the river) and then the trees are collecting flood debris as it flows down the river so it is no fun for a canoer.

As you can see from this picture we have had to cut our way through several times. Other times we have had to stand on the big tree trunks and pull the canoe over. Well, today we had a little adventure. We were in the process of pulling the canoe over a big log and Jesse started to lose his balance so I tried to grab hold of him to keep him from going in but as I'm sure you can guess, that didn't quite work out as planning. We both ended going into the river, however, in the process we did manage to finish pulling the canoe over the big log :} But yes, we were completely soaked along with all of the gear. My forms got soaked and the gps (which holds all of data points fell to the bottom of the river. Luckily the river was only waist high so after about 15 minutes of feeling around with my feet I found it!! I found this whole experience to be extremely funny because just last night I had a conversation with mom about not wearing a life jacket (its in the canoe just not on) =] I also am still very bitter because these low trees murdered my sunglasses. I bought a nice new pair of field sunglasses before I came out because I knew I would be spending HOURS by or on the river and I wanted my eyes to be protected. I had one goal when I came out here NOT TO LOSE MY SUNGLASSES. Well these trouble trees ripped them off of my head yesterday as we were canoeing and they sunk to the bottom of the river. Oh well. Summer goal = failure.

This is a picture of some otter scat that I am looking for. I get so excited when I find this in the field. Its like christmas!!

This is a picture of one of my study sites. See the bridge a couple power-lines ahead in the picture? No? Neither do I. In the past week the flooding came and completely covered the bridge. That is not suppose to be a lake. The river was a hundred yards or so down the road. This kind of put a damper in my research. I now have to find a new study site. Hopefully it will all work out!

Update/Vote

2011-06-27T21:17:00.000-07:00

First thing- at the beginning of the summer I decided to grow my hair out since I never have before (minus the years when I was younger and wore a freakin mushroom on my head. Thanks mom and dad :} evidence can be seen in my school pictures...) anyways, so I thought I would grow it out until our family reunion this summer. Perhaps grow a mullet so I could be MacGyver for halloween!! The picture below is of my hair (and beard) after a month of growth.

I COULDN'T STAND IT. It was such a pain in the butt. I woke up every morning with this weird shape formed into the side of my head. It was hot and itchy and I was constantly fearing I had ticks hiding somewhere in that jungle. So....

I cut it! Perhaps I have no will power to see my goal out to the end but man is it nicer and more convenient! (except for the fact that [mom dont read this part] right after I cut my hair I forgot my hat and got a really bad sun burn on the top of my head. Apparently hair is useful for other things such as a sun shield) Anyways, I thought I would put it to a vote. Do people like the hair longer or shorter? I personally think I look completely different in the two pictures. Thoughts?

I also decided to add a new needed "accessory" to my wardrobe. Suspenders. I have been walking around in some REALLY WET grass and the water that accumulates on my pants has been pulling my pants down, even with a belt, and been making it hard to walk around so I figured the added support would help. I couldn't decide if I looked more like a summer time santa or a little lumber jack :) But as it turns out, since I bought the suspenders the grass has been completely dry. Go figure. So I haven't been able to tell if they actually help out or not. I'm sure by the end of the summer I will have my chance again.

This is a picture to show you how high and obnoxious some of the grass we have to hike through. This one is of me.

The one below is of Jesse my research assistant.

Speaking of Jesse, here is a picture of him and Jill (Vanessa's research assistant)

Jesse and me eating some hot dogs on a non field day.

Herd of wild pronghorn.

A picture of a cliff I climbed (not up the face of the cliff) as I was walking the river bank.

And another

I tried to get a picture of this muskrat swimming in the water. I couldn't get very close.

These last two are just some random pictures I found on my phone. From when I visited kelly before I came out to ND.

Mainly for Lyndsay

2011-06-15T19:13:00.000-07:00

When I went to pick up Jesse and Jill from the airport a week ago (in minneapolis) we discovered that it was right by the mall of America, so we went in to check it out. I HATE shopping and malls but it actually was pretty neat. I would actually go back there and walk/'shop' around. But when I was exploring I found a Lego store and it had these HUGE lego creations outside and above the store made completely of Legos. They are kind of hard to see because I took the pictures from my phone but they were amazing to see. I took them for Lynny because I know how much she loves legos!!

The rest of these are just some pictures of my dog!! Yes, I know, I am overly obsessed with my dog but I don't care :}

North Dakota 2011 Update

2011-06-12T19:09:00.000-07:00

So I have been in North Dakota now for nearly a month. However, until today I have not been able to start my actual research. The rain and flooding out here has been INSANE (I'll try to get some pictures of the flooding later) and has made it really impossible to get to any of my study sites. The flooding also prevented our interns (Jesse and Jill) from getting out here when they were originally suppose too. Then in typical Steve fashion I got sick which put me out of commission for about a week. Then, as I mentioned, today I was able to get out into the field and get my first day of work in. We hiked about 7 miles through thigh high grass along a stretch of river looking for river otter sign. Unfortunately we found VERY LITTLE which does not bode well for me.

For the past 8 months I have been wearing my 'new' hiking boots almost everywhere to try to break them in for this summer since I knew I would be doing a lot of hiking. I thought I had them pretty well broken in until about 2 hours into our hike today...

First, I apologize for the nasty foot picture. I HATE feet. I think they are disgusting and ugly so I typically wouldn't put a picture like this up. And after all of that you can't really get a good idea what the back of my heels look like based on this picture. I have two of the biggest and most painful blisters, well busted open blisters, that I ever have had. Heres hoping they heal soon because I have A LOT more hiking to do this summer!

These next pictures are from a trip Vanessa (the other grad student up here with me) and I took to Theodore Roosevelt National Park. VERY pretty place in western ND (part of the Bad Lands).

Vanessa and me in the park.

Here is a video of Jesse trying to catch a carp (BIG nasty fish) that were everywhere along the river we were walking today. I have challenged him to catch one by hand by the end of the summer!!

My Curse Continues...

2011-04-09T09:53:00.000-07:00

Last night I drove up to Pittsburgh with a friend from school to go to a baseball game. My Rockies were in town!! It also just happened to be "Buc Night" so the tickets were only a dollar as were the hot dogs!! Since the tickets were only a dollar I bought two extras so we had some more room on either side of us (I HATE being crammed in next to people at sporting events). This was probably a better idea then I originally thought because the Pirate fans around me were not to thrilled to have a Rockies fan cheering, somewhat obnoxiously, in their mist. One guy even threatened to "chop my head off" =}

The game started off really well in the first with the Rockies hitting a 3-run home run but by the 6th inning it was all tied up. It ended up going into 14 inning before the Rockies fell ={ And those were the COLDEST 14 inning of my entire life!! We were frozen solid by the time the game was over, around 1:30 am. The 3 hotdogs and nachos I ate weren't extremely happy with me either by that point.

So unfortunately, as I have complained about before, my dreaded curse continues. For the life of me I can not go to watch any of the teams I love and watch them WIN.... I seriously just need to retire from going to sporting events...

This was taken right after the game ended so I wasn't the most thrilled at the time. However, I'm still glad I went.

I forgot to mention that one of my dreams is to catch a fly ball, preferably from my Rockies! Well last night one of the Rockies hit one over into my section. It landed a few rows in front of us but bounced up to the section next to us. It then hit off of a chair and started rolling down my isle RIGHT AT ME!!! My friend and I were going to get it when some drunk guy jumped all over it. COME ON, soooo close. It literally was about 2 seats away from me. Ahh... maybe next time...

Small-Footed Bat

2011-04-07T17:01:00.000-07:00

I have been extremely stressed the past few week and have not been getting much sleep. Since I am up in the middle of the night most night I thought I might as well use that time wisely. So, a few weeks ago I got a research technician job working with bats. In case any of you weren't sure, bats are nocturnal and are up in the middle of the night as well!

We are studying the spread of 'white nose syndrome' which, if I remember correctly, is a deadly fungal infection that spreads very easily between bat populations. As you can see in the picture above, we go to old train tunnels to trap bats. You can't see it very well but right in front of the tunnel is a giant net that covers the entire entrance. The square that you see in the middle of the 'net' is where the bats try to fly through. The square section is lined with rows of fishing line. The bats will fly into the fishing line and fall down into a bag at the bottom where we collect them. Since I don't have my rabies vaccines I don't get to handle the bats but I'll do the data recording, sterilizing, and help with the setup/takedown.

This is a view of our work area looking down from the top of the tunnel.

This is our work station where we bring the bats back to work on.

Last night we caught our first bat of the season and it just happened to be a small-footed bat which is a state endangered species and probably soon a federally endangered species. These are the bats we really want to find (although any bat is good!) When we find the small-footed bats we attach a radio telemetry tracker on them so we can follow them over the following 2 weeks after capture and release.

They let me name the bat because I came up with a funny name! At least I thought it was funny. When we catch a bat and record the data for it we have to make note of what species it is. We use 4 letter codes that are abbreviated for their scientific name. The small-footed bat is abbreviated MYLE. Naturally Miley Cyrus came to mind. Myle, Miley, get it?! However, since it is a boy bat I just named it Cyrus. Come on, thats funny right? :}

Here we are getting ready put an ID band on his wing.

I love this picture!! Hopefully you can blow it up after I publish this post. He's not angry, he's just saying 'cheese' :}

This is a picture of the bat after we had the transmitter attached, right before he was released.

Me with the bat.

Lisa (my office mate) with the bat.

Juliet (my boss) with the bat.

Philly Trip

2011-02-19T19:04:00.000-08:00

I have always wanted to go to Philadelphia to get a legitimate Philly cheese steak. I proposed the idea when we were talking about activities to do for institute and we actually ended up doing it, today! It was a bout a 4 1/2 hour trip but boy was it worth it. We got there just in time for lunch. If you watch the food or travel channel much you might have caught a show talking about the "big debate" in Philly and who has the best cheese steak. There is a corner with 2 famous shops that get most of the hype so we decided to check that out. I was so hungry when we got there that we ate one from Pats and then ran across the street and tried one from Geno's. I downed 2 cheese steaks in about 15 minutes!!

One of the big controversies is whether to use cheese whiz or provolone, so of course I tried one of each =) BY FAR the cheese whiz was much better. The provolone had no flavor to it, pretty much just tasted like water. So when we went back for dinner I got another cheese whiz!

This is a picture looking from Pat's across the street to Geno's. I might have to cast my vote for Geno's (despite the fact that that is where I got the one with the provolone) because I liked the bread a little better. It was softer. Pat's bread kind of hurt my teeth trying to bite through it (mom would probably prefer Pats due to that :) Besides the bread, the meat, onions, and cheese whiz tasted about the same from both places.

This is just a random building in Philly. The city its self was CRAZY. The streets were small and crowded with cars flying everywhere. One thing that was interesting is that cars would park in the middle of the street. If you picture a 4 lane road (2 in each direction) you know how there is usually a big yellow section that divides the 2 directions well people would park their cars in the yellow. So you would be driving down the road and in the middle there would a row of empty cars. Some of them even would hang over into the left turn lane. I don't know if that even makes sense or if you can picture that or not but it was pretty strange.

It also was a pretty dirty city. The wind was EXTREMELY strong (which made it really cold) but it also made it seem like it was raining trash. You would be walking down the sidewalk (which had animal poop EVERYWHERE) and plastic bags or small pieces of paper would just start falling out of the sky and landing all over you.

I was walking down the side walk (dodging falling trash) and I saw this statue. I was looking at it and then looked down at the description/name and saw "The Singer". Apparently its real name is "The Signer" (I might be a slight dyslexic, who knows...) But if you were to just look at it what would you think it would say? Looks like he is singing to me!!

Here is Independence Hall. Of course when I go to Philly it is under construction. We were still able to take a tour of it though. Found out its original name was NOT Independence Hall, can't remember what it was though.

The Liberty Bell. Pretty cool to see!!

Inside Independence Hall.

This is the room where the Constitution was actually signed. Learned that it actually wasn't signed until August 2nd (or 22nd, don't remember) July 4th was when it was accepted I believe. The chair in the back is the actual chair that George Washington sat in during all of their meetings. It is the only "original" item in the room. Also learned that after President Lincoln was assassinated, on the way to bringing his body back to Illinois they stopped off there and had an open casket in that room for the public to go and pay their respect.

A few more items from Independence Hall. (thought mom might like the piano)

And of course, the "Rocky stairs"!!! This last picture was from the top of the stairs looking out over Philly. Nice view. And no, I did not run up the stair and pump my fists and the top like Rocky :}

Lost Photos

2011-02-18T13:56:00.000-08:00

I found a roll of film when I was home for Christmas so I thought I would develop it. Mystery rolls of film can be very interesting but this one really came through! I loved the flash back from when my little buddies were A LOT younger.

If you couldn't tell these first ones were from when I went to Grand Canyon. I did a national parks trip on my way out to school one year and stopped by 5 national parks, visited the Snow's in NM, the Wilson's in AZ, and the Detro's and Warrens in UT.

I typically HATE these type of pictures but since somebody took this picture I figured they would want to see it. Plus Jared's face is pretty funny

I love this last one of "Mo" and Lynny

Evaluations!!!

2011-01-31T17:11:00.000-08:00

Warning, Long post...

At the end of every semester the university has the students fill out evaluations on their teachers, even grad students. It is actually the grad students responsibility to go around to the different classes (the teacher will step out during the eval) and hand out the evaluations.

I just got mine back from last semester. I unfortunately did not do as well as I would have liked or thought I might have done. I got an overall score of 3.91 out of 5. It was roughly midway of all of the grad students. I was actually kind of bummed because I thought my kids liked me. Reading through the "free response" answers it actually seemed like I got some very nice comments so I was confused why the overall score was so low. Oh well. Heres to improving for this semester!

I thought it would be fun to share some of the comments my students made with you guys. I found it funny how within the same class the responses were so different. Oh, when I share the nicer responses, its not to brag but to compare with the not so positive responses =)

(There were 2 questions on the instructor on the "free response" section. "What are the major strengths of the instructor and then the major weaknesses")

It turns out that one girl REALLY didn't like me. Lets start with that one...

Major Strengths: None (with a frowny face)
Major weaknesses: -Barely prepared. -Could hardly answer any of my questions. -Not good at relaying information. -Hardly ever available outside of class. -"Suspect" grading scale. -Barely seemed to care. -Quick to say "I don't know", without offering further assistance.

Wowzer! It was actually kind of funny because right after reading that one I read these ones (again from the same class).

Major strengths: Clear explanations, good with questions. On time grading and respect
Major weaknesses: None

Major strengths: Always came to class prepared and ready to explain the assignment. Also was there to give step by step guidance.
Major weaknesses: Sometimes the grading was not explained carefully. (I'll talk more about this one later)

Major strengths: Always seemed interested in what the students were doing in each experiment.

Major weaknesses: Grades to hard

One person said this

Major weaknesses: He would constantly be late...

I honestly can say that I was NEVER late for any of my labs. I was always early to prepare for lab.

Oh, and going back up to the girl that really disliked me and said I was never available; If I am not in class I am ALWAYS in my office. Many days from 7:30ish until 4ish. I am ALWAYS in my office, way more then any other grad student and they all admit that and were blown away when I shared that one with them.

Some more from my other class:

Major strengths: Seemed to really care about what he was teaching, and helped as much as he could when answering questions.

Major weaknesses: None

Major strengths: He was very respectable and very cool as a bio teacher for lab. (I liked that one =)

Major weaknesses: Grades this course to hard

Major strengths: Good guy, friendly, polite, respectful

Major weaknesses: Never once received full credit for my labs (many kids DID get full credit. If you don't deserve it then you don't get it...)

At the end of the semester we hand out awards for the toughest grader and the easiest grader, "Hard ass grader" and "Powder Puff grader" respectively. Well, as you might have guessed from my "weakness" comments, I received the hard ass grader. I was actually blown away by this because on almost all of the assignments I found myself giving points away to these kids. I was trying to be as nice as I could with the grading. We have rubrics to follow for the grading so I am told what to take points off for. At times I would NOT take off some of the points that I probably should have, and I still was considered the hardest grader. Hmm... not sure about that one

Anyways, I have actually really enjoyed teacher so far! Perhaps I can change some things around and improve for this next semester =)

Projects

2011-01-19T14:49:00.000-08:00

Now that I am at a non-BYU school, I actually get a legitimate winter break (over a month!!) Besides the week and a half that I was sick I have been keeping myself pretty busy with different projects around the house. Here are just a few that I thought you guys might be interested in.

I put in a peg-board for the tools and moved them all over to the way that is shared with the house. Hopefully this will help prevent toys from building up in front of them so we can easily get to them when we need them!!

I then pushed the shelves together to close in the gap where the tools were located and tried organizing things so less stuff was cluttered on the ground. Despite how it looks in the pictures it actually is a lot less cluttered and there is a lot more room in the garage to move around =)

With the help of Katy, when she was still here, I got a bunch of pictures hung around the house. They really are a lot more straight when you look at them in person compared to how it looks in the picture... Katy and mom can back me up on that!

Moved the fish tank closer to the wall by cutting and adjusting the lid and getting a new filter for it. (mom still hates it with a passion)

Hung the clock, again with Katy's help

These are on the wall to the right (next to the book shelves) when you are looking at the TV. Also hung some other random pictures around the house.

I also tried gluing down the train tracks to the train table while Kelly and Katy's kids where here to test how it would hold up to play... complete and utter failure. Those kids had that thing torn apart within 5 minutes of playing with it!!! Maybe next time I am home I will try some kind of stronger adhesive

Well, those were some of the larger projects I did. Probably not very interesting to most of you but I haven't posted anything in a while so why not :}

UPDATE...

Here is an attempt at a picture of the closet mom was talking about. I forgot about this project, which is odd because it was a lot of work. Anyways, it is the closet that is next to the bathroom by the kitchen and dining room.

Snowman Cake

2010-12-17T14:30:00.000-08:00

The past couple days I have been a little bored. When I get bored my mind starts a turning =)

I'm sure you all know by now that I love to cook. I even took a baking class when I was at BYU-Idaho. Well, one of my favorite TV shows is Cake Boss. So I decided to make a cake!! A holiday cake!!! I thought a snowman cake would be fun since we have been getting a lot of snow outside. And that shouldn't be to hard to make, right?

WRONG!!

It was a pain in the butt and as most of my projects go, it didn't turn out at all like I thought it would. I used rice krispy treats for the bottom half of the spheres and the weight of the treats caused it to pull the edges down so it didn't really look like a circle or ball. I then put cake on top of each rice krispy treats and the cake was extremely crumbly. When I tried to dirty ice it, the whole thing just started pulling off and falling apart.

I also used fondant for the first time and found out that that stuff is not the easiest to work with. FYI- never mix fondant and water... one word... disaster! I tried making a little water based paint to paint the hat and it just turned it to goop.

As you can probably see in the back ground of the pictures, this whole process also made an enormous mess.

Before the hat was finished.

Finished with the hat. I forgot to save some rice krispys for the hat so I just used a huge glob of fondant. I tried mixing in some chocolate cake crumbs into the fondant to turn it a dark color. Also a very bad idea. (this is what inspired me to use my homemade paint)

The pure fondant hat was so heavy it started ripping the head backwards and off of the rest of the snowman.

I'm trying to hold the hat and head up in this last picture.

I also wanted to add a pipe but by the time I got to that step it just wasn't worth it. I don't think the head would have been able to hold it anyways.

I guess you can say it was a good experience trying to make this but I'm just not quite convinced it was worth it. Cleaning the mess probably took longer then making the whole thing :} And it definitely wouldn't fly in Buddies kitchen

Penn State Game

2010-10-13T17:54:00.001-07:00

This past weekend I drove up to State College (which turns out is only a couple hours away) to see the Ranishs and go to a Penn State game for the first time. I have had a life goal to attend a Penn State game when Joe Paterno is coaching on the sideline. The drive was extremely beautiful. The leaves are starting to change into several colors. I was going to stop and take some pictures but just never did...

Denise and Mike Ranish

Susie and Georgie Ranish (Timmy wasn't around when we took pictures)

At Joepa's statue in front of Beaver Stadium

I paparazzied Joepa's house!! I love how it is so modest. The second picture is a "Where's Waldo" of Joepa on the side. Can you find him? (right by the sideline and 48 yard line)

These next pictures are of the "scary road" that was by our house. I don't know if any of you remember that road or not but I thought it would be fun for, those who remembered it, to see what it looks like now. Apparently 15 years does a lot to an old broke down road.

The top picture is of what's left of the "scary road". The bottom two are from the yellow gate looking the other way. Not so scary these days =)

I also stopped the the gymnastics center Katy and I went to. That was VERY weird being back in there. The lobby looked a little different but the gym looked just the same. I was going to take some pictures for mom and Katy but there were a bunch of parents in the lobby and I think they were wondering what I was doing there to begin with so I didn't want to start taking pictures of their little kids and then leave. Maybe next time.

These next pictures were at the game!! The stadium was huge. I now know how they fit over 110,000 people in there. They think everyone's butt is 6 inches wide and a hip to knee span of 8 inches. Although it was great being at the game, that was the most uncomfortable 3 hours of my life. It was so cramped. Next time I go it will be in a box seat!! A new life goal!

Hear is our old house. It looked sooo small compared to how I remembered it growing up. The driveway was also a lot shorter then I remembered. I also asked Mike about the family that lived across the street from us (I think the Bolish's?) He said that they still live there, well the son and daughter. I guess the parents passed away a few years ago.

All in all it was really weird being back there and seeing everything again. It brought back a ton of memories!!

This last picture is just from a trip I took with some of the grad students to work on one of their projects.

Home Update/ Office

2010-08-25T14:49:00.001-07:00

Picture of the outside of the house. The second picture is of the desk I bought today. (I hadn't read moms comment on the other post to know that she was going to bring one out for me...) After I got the desk set up I was looking around for my ball (I use an exercise ball for my desk chair) and realized I couldn't find it. So I called Katy to have her check the trunk of the blue car which Clay drove out here with a bunch of my stuff to see if it was still in there and sure enough it was... Oh well. I guess I can keep using my box of movies for the next week and a half.

This first picture is of my office from the doorway. The second is looking in the opposite direction and the third is of the desk I have been using. I supposedly will be sharing the office with another grad student but she hasn't shown up yet. I might get it all to myself!!

I also went to get a parking pass for my Jeep today and they gave me a "faculty/staff" parking pass! How cool is that!! I get to park in the forbidden spots now. I will also be getting a faculty email or something like that so the students from my lab can get a hold of me. Its all still kind of weirding me out =}

Frostburg Housing

2010-08-24T18:57:00.001-07:00

I was talking with TJ today and he said I needed to update my blog now that I am out here at school and "actually have something to update". So I thought I would snap a few pictures as I am relaxing in front of my Rockies game and do a quick update. Since it is dark out I don't have any pictures of the outside of the house yet.

It is definitely an old school house. Wood window frames and doors that barely fit together and creak really bad as you open and close them. It has a basement (as I found out today) but i didn't get any pictures of that because it freaked me out when I discovered it. It seriously looks like a basement straight from some horror movie, probably will never venture down there again! I have also discovered today that the house has a swampy smell, or something like that. An old house smell...

Anyways, these first two are of the down stairs laundry area/bathroom. The only shower is downstairs.

This is a little storage area off of the kitchen

Some shots of the kitchen. It actually is pretty roomy but doesn't have many cabnits

Looking in from the front door

This first picture is the room to the right as you come in the front door. It will eventually become our tv room. The second picture is looking from the tv room back into the room with the table that you saw from the front door.

The top of the stairs looking down the hall. My room is on the right. Right behind me is the upstairs bathroom.

Upstairs bathroom

This is looking into my room. It is still messing because I am trying to find places for everything to go and I still don't have a desk or anything.

The first picture the door is directly to my left. It also is a picture of my make-shift bed. Mom and Dad will be bringing a MUCH NEEDED bed over labor day weekend!! The second picture is looking from my bed over to the closet area. It is the dumbest closet design ever.

Yard Work

2010-06-29T19:09:00.001-07:00

To start i thought I would show you how my garden has grown! Despite the fact that the "topsy turvy" looks a lot bigger, it wasn't doing very well for a while and it has JUST started flowering. No fruit yet.

Before After

I always get overzealous when planting my gardens, thinking that I have plenty of room to put a bunch of plants. As you can see in the first picture it looks like there is plenty of room. Well in the second picture you can see how it has bloomed. My only fatality has been my peper plant. For some reason all of the leaves just fell off of it one day... My strawberries did fairly well. I picked enough to make about 2 small peanut butter jars full of freezer jam. It was actually pretty good. Jack loved it!

Before After

As you all know, I have been working in the yard the past few weeks. My week long project turned into a 2 1/2 week project. But, at least I love doing this stuff. Its like christmas morning for me when I get to do a project!

I forgot to get any before pictures because I was so excited to get out there and get started, but mom took a few shortly after I started so I'll use those for some "before and after" shots.

Before After

Before After

Before
After The green stuff in the second picture is suppose to grow new grass. Most of the lawn could use that stuff...

The rest of these are just some random shots of the finished project and some of the work in progress.

The pond, part of which was for dads fathers day present!

This last picture is of us about to haul away the last of the mulch I pulled up. (found in the second to last picture) Katy actually saved the day with that. She helped me load and unload that trailer a couple times. I probably would be 6 feet under right now if she wasn't helping me. That was a lot of work. Probably the hardest part of the whole project.

Sky Diving!!!

2010-05-19T20:39:00.001-07:00

So I am sure most of you have heard by now but I went sky diving today!!! Brandon and I have been talking about doing it for years now so we went and finally did it! I wasn't going to tell anyone I did it until after I got back but that plan got foiled when mom saw that Brandon posted that he was going to jump today on his facebook page, and she knew I was going over to his house today... so she put 2 and 2 together. Oh well.

Anyways, just a warning, this might be a long post because I am still filled with adrenalin and thoughts of todays events are flying through my head and I want to get them all down.

I'm not sure how many of you know but I do actually have a slight fear of heights. (this is one of the reasons I couldn't do the 3-meter and try to dive in college) Going into today I was extremely excited about jumping out of a plane but as we got there and the time got closer, I was scared, well lets say nervous, about the idea. I kept asking Brandon if he was nervous and he kept insisting that he wasn't but as soon as our instructor (Jeff) asked who wanted to go first Brandon jumped right in and said "Steve can go first". Uh-huh, thats what I thought =} I wasn't the only nervous one there, but I was by far more nervous, I'll admit that.

Anyways, we got the quick safety and procedure lesson and then I was harnessed up and ready to go. Now, despite what you might read further on, I really did feel safe with Jeff and I trusted him completely . I couldn't have asked for a better first time instructor.

This (up) is the actual plane we jumped from and I am in it in both of those but the one below is a close up of what it looked like (its a different plane). It pretty much was a small plane with all of the seats taken out. On the way up I sat on the floor by the door right next to the pilot.

Oh, I forgot to mention how ghetto this place looked. When we got there we literally pulled into someone's driveway (who obviously lived in the country by open fields). We went around back to the "hanger" where they were putting together the parachutes on the hanger floor on a bunch of carpets that were thrown next to each other. Very appealing and confidence building!

Anyways, getting back to the jump. As I was sitting on the floor of the airplane, not strapped to a parachute or person at the time, we took off and made our way to 11,500 feet above the ground, not sea level (I believe). When we got to our altitude I slowly turned around and Jeff strapped me to himself (we are now facing forward). He then opened the door and I had to put my right foot out onto the wheel step. The wind hit my foot so hard that it scared the living crud out of me. I then had to cross my arms and lean forward out of the plane (my left foot was still in the plan) as Jeff was getting set and into place. So yes, I was just kind of hanging there 90% out of the plane looking down at the ground. And let me tell you what. As soon as I did that I was about ready to say "Nooope, never mind, pull me in and lets land." But I stayed strong :) It then all went so fast. We launched out of the plane and started tumbling towards the earth.

Some stats Jeff told me:

-We jumped from 11,500 feet above ground

-Free fell for 60 seconds (6,000 feet)

-Pulled the cord at 5,500 feet

-Our free fall speed was somewhere around 140 mph

I decided NOT to pull the cord myself (Jeff said afterwards that he prefers to pull it but gives the students the option) and Brandon DID pull it. He however let go of the cord during the fall and lost it. Whoops :}

In our training Jeff said that as soon as we left the plane we were to hit the "arch" position which would bring us into the proper free falling position (belly towards the ground). And I did that. All I could think about was holding that arch and not moving. Jeff later said that I did that really well. However, after we were falling for a couple seconds I started to notice that I was starting to see sky again (instead of ground) in fact I could see the crescent moon that was in the sky. I remember thinking to myself at that point "Hmm, I don't remember Jeff saying that was going to happen. I trust Jeff, I trust Jeff, I trust Jeff..." We had apparently done a back flip because when we got to the ground he asked me if I had noticed, I did, and he said that we got hit by a gust of wind that flipped us and when he tried his "move" that was suppose to flip us right back over it didn't work. In his words he told me he was saying in the air "oh S**t, that didn't work." But he kept at it until we were right side up!!

I can just hear mom saying at this point of the story "ok, that isn't even funny." But we both had a big laugh over it when he was telling me because obviously he was able to get us fixed and everything went just fine. And hey, I can now say I did a back flip while sky diving!!

He also told me when we were on the ground that he forgot to tell me to breather through my nose and not my mouth. And since I was very busy contemplating the consequences of my most recent decision as I was plummeting towards the earth, I wasn't thinking about common sense and I tried breathing with my mouth open. It sucked the breath right out of me and dried my mouth right up.

It was such a rush when we were free falling but I managed to have these "flash thoughts", as I call them, that were soaring through my head during the fall. Though some of these might sound stupid or cliché, they all really occurred and obviously have stuck with me ever since the jump. Some of those flash thoughts are:

-I am the dumbest person alive

-I am going to die

-I hope the guy packed our chute right

-This is the coolest thing I have ever done

-I'm in heaven, I love this!

-Jeff will hate me if I throw up right now

Those and others just kept zipping through my head until the chute deployed and the pace of the events slowed way down.

Previous to jumping I thought the chute was going to give me whip lash when it opened but in reality, I could barely notice, well, besides the fact we were now going incredibly slower! He let me turn the chute when he was adjusting some of the straps. That was pretty cool. We got to go through some clouds and then we did some "spirals" which is when you pull down on one side of the chute and you start spinning in circles really fast. It actually startled me how much force was put on us when we did that and how fast it felt like we were spinning.

Throughout the whole jump I did feel a little sick in the gut (due to motion sickness) but was able to manage just fine. It seriously was the craziest, most fun and thrilling thing I have ever done and honestly the scariest (almost getting blown off the cruise ship comes in a close second!) I had sooo much fun doing it. I loved the experience and am very proud of myself for going through with it. I have been pumped up ever since the jump, which was over 7 hours ago which is why I am still up doing this blog, mainly because I can not sleep with all of the adrenalin. I feel like I am forgetting somethings so I might have an update blog if I can think of them.

These are of me coming down. They are a little fuzzy because I forgot to tell brandon the secret to clear pictures with my camera.

Right after landing.

These four are of Brandon coming down. Less blurry so you might be able to see them better.

Oh, and both Brandon and I were able to see each other free falling towards the ground. I could actually see Brandon leave the plane. Obviously he was really small but I could see him nonetheless. It was crazy to see how fast it looked when he was free falling and then realizing that I had just done that!

We got certificates to prove we did it!

These are videos of us landing. I believe I am in the first one (the more blurry one)

I definitely recommend everyone trying it at least once.

Water Rocket

2010-05-14T13:17:00.000-07:00

Alrighty, so I know you guys have been holding your breath ever since I mentioned my water rocket. Well, today I finally got a good video of a successful launch. However, my second launch of the day made it back on top of the roof so it might be a while before we get to play with it again. Hopefully it will be working again before everyone comes out for the summer because I bet all the kids would love to play with it!

Oh, so incase you don't know the story behind the water rocket.... a few weeks ago Jack asked me to make him a rocket (I have no clue where that request came from) but it got my mind a spinning and I came up with this! Oh, and you girls might recognize the parachute attached to it. Yes, it is the same parachute that beat you in our little competition =}

Stuff

2010-05-11T16:46:00.001-07:00

So after getting home last week from my trip out west and from helping Kelly plant her Topsy Tervy garden I got real excited to start my own garden (since it is looking like I will be here for a while...) I actually started the night I got back from Kelly's. It was a lot of work. I had to shave the top layer of grass off of the ground, build a box to put around the garden area, till the ground by hand (which was solid clay), and then mix in some Miracle Gro soil to help improve the soil for my vegetables.

This is a picture of the Topsy Tervy that Kelly and I got for mom for mothers day. It was a HUGE pain in the butt trying to put it up, first off because I was doing it by myself, and secondly because it was so freakin heavy once all of the dirt was in it. The tomato plants aren't looking all that great as of yet so we'll see what happens over the next few weeks....

A couple views of the garden box. It is located back behind the swing set by the tree line. I actually ended up getting in trouble for putting it there. I was trying to put it right near the property line but I guess I got my angle off and it ended up being a few inches over the property line. The guy who owns that land (the land that includes the tree line) came over and I had a little chat with him. Ok, so I understand I messed up and part of it IS on his land. (but for the record, which I know doesn't mean anything, it still is on his land, he's never on this side of the tree line. It's not like he pulls out a lawn chair and kicks back right there) But he said since I already had everything planted that I could just leave it where it was but he said "Next year I want you to take it out and put the grass back like it was". He wasn't being the nicest guy at this point so I told him that I WASN'T going to take it out and replace the grass. I would be more then happy to move it off his land but he didn't have the right to tell me to take the whole thing out. I wasn't in the mood to be bullied around so I wasn't having it. He then started getting after me because our mower guys mow back to the tree line and he said that they cut it shorter then what he cuts it. Mom and Dad said that in the whole 2-3 years they have lived here they have never seen him behind the tree line to mow once. And that was the whole reason he wanted the garden moved, so he could get his mower back there (which there still is plenty of room).....

I probably shouldn't have but I then asked him about one of his trees that was starting to grow over into our property and cover my garden. I asked if he ever trimmed his trees back.... The story goes on a little longer but you get the idea. So, I'm leaving my garden where it is until next year when I'll gladly move it back and LEAVE my garden in!

Oh the drama of a soul who loves to garden...

This is just a close up of some of the plants I put in. On the left are strawberries. I'm very curious to see how they turn out. I've never done strawberries before so we'll see. Then there is a lone peper plant and then the two on the right are two more tomato plants. I also planted some green beans, corn, zucchini, and watermelon. Heres a hopin!

These are a couple pictures with baby Steve from when I babysat him when I was in Utah.

These are two of my friends (Brooke and Heather) that I met up with in Provo.

This is my golfing buddy Forbis (the one I go on all of my winter golfing trips with) We did a round in Utah since we missed our big trip this winter.

I also have discovered that I am pretty darn good at remembering to take my camera with me on trips, however, I am horrible at remembering to use it. That is why I do not have any pictures from my stop in Colorado or from when I was at Lynny's.

The graduation part from my last post...

2010-03-29T13:03:00.001-07:00

Dad and me after graduation.

TJ and Dad came to graduation (Dad I believe is on the phone with Lynny! We drove down to her house later that night)

One of my best friends out at school, Heather. We walked together.

TJ tried filming the walk. My camera isn't that great at recording, especially from distances, but you can get the gist of it, and hear it I think.

Pillow and Graduation

2010-03-29T11:49:00.001-07:00

As usual this stupid blog thing is being a pain in the butt. As of now (for the past hour or so) these are the only pictures I could get loaded....

I believe that I mentioned on an earlier post that I am retiring from my "little" projects of creating stuff from my ostrich hides. This decision came after the disaster of a bag I made Lynny. Again, I am very sorry for that =} However, when I was looking at all of my left over material, I felt sad that I waisted so much of it. So I decided to to make ONE MORE thing with the left over material so I could use as much of it as possible. I wanted to try to make a floor pillow, kind of like the one grammy Peper had in her house (do you guys remember that??) I ended up cutting out 2 different square sizes so I made 2 pillows. Once again, it was WAY more work then I was anticipating and it didn't go as smoothly as I had projected in my head. Luckily I had Katy here to help! Nonetheless, I think I broke at least 2 sewing machine needles during the process.

I wanted to put zippers in it to make it easier to put the fluff in it so I recruited Katy to help with that. It was her first attempt at sewing a zipper (that is why I have a picture with her and her zippers!) She did great, much better then the ghetto job I would have done with it.

Anyways, they are finally complete and they are very comfortable as well. Jack loves laying across the big one. I bet Uncle Steve would have been proud of my little creation =) The only down side is they are a little slick right now. You slide off of them a little bit. I'm sure they just need to get broken in!

SNORKELING

2010-01-29T11:57:00.001-08:00

Ok, so here are some of the pictures that I took while snorkeling (some are from Tylers camera as well). They really did not turn out all that great. I'm not sure why I was having such high hopes for a disposable, underwater camera....

And I'm not sure who knows this or not, but I actually am really afraid of the ocean and deep water, such as where I went snorkeling. It took me quite sometime to get warmed up enough to move out away from the beach but once I did I was very glad that I did it. There were a couple times when I might have freaked out a little bit but I was able to overcome that and have a GREAT time!!

I was trying to hold myself down under the water for the picture, but for some reason, as you can see in the picture, my butt kept floating up towards the top and I couldn't get into a normal looking position. Thats why this one looks strange =}

Oh, I forgot to mention that last semester when I went on this cruise I was taking an Ichthyology class (the study of fish) so it was pretty cool to see a bunch of the fish that I had been studying/dissecting. I might try to tell you what some of these fish are but who knows if I'm right or not. It turns out that my weakest part of the class was fish identification, although I ended up with an A in the class!!!

I think this was an Eagle Ray. It waS HUGE. It swam so gracefully through the water but it was extremely hard to keep up with.

This, I believe was a moray eel. This thing scared the crud out of me. It gave me flashbacks of Little Mermaid nightmares with the twin eels that worked for Ursula. It looked just like them. Even though this thing scared me to death I followed it for a little bit until it went under a huge hunk of corral. Once it disappeared I stayed by the corral it went under for sometime, partly wanting to see it gain and partly not wanting to turn my back on it thinking it was going to attack me or something. Man it gave me the willies...

These were just some different stingrays and skates. I really enjoyed finding these guys. If you can see in the first picture he tried burying himself in the sand.

I'm not even going to try to identify the rest of these. We'll just call them "colorful fishes"

The CRUISE

2010-01-25T11:03:00.000-08:00

Ok, so this is a long time over due. These are the pictures from my cruise with my two buddies over Thanksgiving break. The pictures aren't really in any order, I didn't feel like messing with them all that much. I did try to put like-pictures together though. Anyways, here we go...

Me and Tyler

Mark (Tyler and Mark were my roommates that I went with, if you couldn't tell =)

These two pictures are in our estate room. It was pretty dang small. These two are taken from the back wall looking forward towards the door. The room door has the mirror and the second picture has me coming out of the bathroom on the left.

These two are looking from the door into the room. The room had 4 beds in it.

The first one is of our ship docked at one of the ports. The second is looking off of the ship towards the Bahamas.

Me, Mark, Gilbert (we stayed with him and his wife in Florida), and Tyler

Mark looking over the port at Key west I believe. The second is of me and Mark at one of the shows on the ship.

Every night when we got back from dinner we had a new type of towel animal. We had left our sun glasses out so they put them on the animal. They were pretty cool.

This was the beach that we went snorkeling at. (I'll do another post of those pictures) The picture of my face is trying to show you the several stings that I got from something in the water. I couldn't see what it was that got me but man O man did it hurt. It got my right side of the fact twice, my chest, and one hand. It BURNED for hours and got puffy/blistered. I was almost at the point where I had Mark of Tyler pee on my face to see if that old myth really works...... JUST KIDDING! I didn't want to risk getting any of it in my mouth :-)

Tyler and me at the rail of the ship. It was really high up. It made my stomach turn when I would lean over and look down. The second is of me and Tyler again in our estate room with another animal creation.

For dinner we randomly got paired up for the week with another family, the picture. It really is a small world because they happened to be members of the church as well. They only came to dinner a couple nights because they didn't like the service. Our waiter was extremely nice, it just took FOREVER to get our food. We probably averaged 2 hours at dinner. The food was pretty good but they didn't have the caviar and lobster like you always think would be there. I did try duck for the first time and escargot which was really good! The second picture is looking down from one of the upper decks to the pool area.

Just some shots of our ship.

The first one is at some dolphin place (Tyler apparently loves dolphins so he paid to go swimming with them. In hind sight I wish I had done it as well. To much money though) But the picture is of one of the trainers running across the water. It REALLY looked like they were running on water but they obviously just had a walkway right under they water surface. It was still funny though! The second is of the port of Miami as we were pushing off the start the trip.

Just some shots of us guys!

So I can't remember who I told my near death story to so I thought I might try to tell it again. I hope it all makes sense. I think it was our last night on the ship I was in our estate room by myself (I think Mark and Tyler were at a show I didn't want to see). It was about 12:30 and the weather was pretty rough. You could really feel the ship rocking. So I thought I would go up to the top deck to look at the wave and see how big they really were. This is the part that will be kind of hard to describe- When I got to the top I walked out onto the deck at about mid ship. This level of deck kind of circled all the way around the ship with a big room in the middle, the room I came out of. It turned out that the wind was blowing from the side, left to right. I was on the right side of the ship. It was really loud because of the wind but because I was on the right and hand the room to my left I was pretty much blocked from the wind. I started to walk up to the front of the ship, you know, needing to do the whole Titanic thing =) and as I was walking I would look over the side into the vast open ocean. Again, it was about 12:30 so it was extremely dark. I could see very far but I could make out some pretty big waves down below. Anyways, I kept walking up towards the front of the ship and right as I came to the part where the deck wrapped around the room I came out of, the wind hit me like a freight train. Since I previously was being blocked from the direct path of the wind I wasn't thinking of what might happen when I stepped out into the open. The wind was blowing soooo hard and it just caught me so off guard, it knocked me off balance and over towards the railing. LUCKILY I was able to catch myself and get my feet back under me before I flipped over the railing. I have never been so dang scared in my life. Once I had a hold of myself, I stood there for a minute looking over the railing realizing how close I was to going over. It would have been something like a 13 story fall (you can see how high from looking at the pictures) into a deep big black ocean. I was the only one up on the deck at the time so no one would have seen or heard me fall. That thought as well scared me even more. But once I calmed down, being the stubborn person that I am, I had to make it to the front of the boat to finish my journey. I managed to shuffle along trying to stay closer to the ground and holding onto the inner railing. But once I made it to the front of the ship it was completely worth it. It was so peaceful and calming (besides the pounding wind that was sucking the breath from my lungs and making me loose hearing from my left ear). But I stayed there for probably 15 minutes just looking out into nothing. It was a very interesting experience to say the least. Once I made it back to the estate room, Mark was there so I told him of my experience and tried to convince him to go back up with me. We made it to the top deck but once he felt the gusts of wind...we weren't going to go any further...

Oh, and on a side note, I know it doesn't look like I am smiling in a lot of the pictures but I really did have a great time and I really did love it. I guess I just need to try harder to smile for the camera! =}

Halloween, Lasagna Throwdown, Camping

2009-11-08T20:53:00.000-08:00

Alrighty, so I finally am getting my halloween pictures up. I am actually very surprised with how many people did not know who or what I was. Take a guess....

I'm not really blue guys, I was just standing in some really bad light when this picture was taken =)

Notice the tail in the picture above

....I'm Papa Smurf! The blue paint was actually blue hair dye in a can. I went through 2 cans. It made my skin so dry and pretty cracky. I was also turning everything that I touched blue! Good times. People actually told me that my costume was their favorite at the party, that it was the most original!

Just a group of our friends/ roommates.

Roommate Mark and friend Al.

Today we had a lasagna throwdown. It was a lot of fun. There were 3 competing in it, me, a friend from the ward Mark, and my roommates Mark and Tyler were together making one.

Here we are serving the crowd/judges.

This was right before we served the food. We were each standing by our creations. We are holding the golden spatula, what we were competing for.

Mark and Tyler, wishing they will win it. (These are the 2 that I am going on the cruise with. Oh, did I mention that I am going on a cruise over thanksgiving!!! One last hurrah before I graduate)

Mark, cutting the lasagnas.

Me, your WINNER, holding the prized golden spatula!!! It was a close race. We were judged out of 5 points for originality, 5 points for looks, and 15 for taste.

My other roommate Tyler and I went camping friday night. It was pretty dang cold, but if you know what you are doing it isn't to bad I guess. It was snowing when we woke up. You can kind of see the snow in the pictures. It was a lot of fun but we might sound a little lame because we went to bed at 7pm and then woke up at 5am.

Trip to Lynny's

2009-10-27T15:15:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I headed down to Utah. I had originally planned on going on my first hunting trip which I had been planning for MONTHS but since I had just started getting over the swine flu, everyone thought that I shouldn't go...so I regretfully didn't go. (It turns out that the guy I was going to go with said it was a lame trip, no deer and the wind was blowing 40 mph the whole time) So I guess it was better that I didn't go.

Anyways, TJ called earlier in the week and said that I could come down to Utah to go to the BYU game with him since Julia had to work. I looked to be a great game so I decided to go. (Turns out, not such a great game...)

I then realized that Lyndsay had just moved there so I gave her a call and ended up see her and her family for a few hours on Saturday and Sunday. It was a lot of fun and I am glad I made the trip!!!

Jared, Me, and Madison

Jared and me. Madison was laying on the floor for some reason...

Julia, Baby Steveo (inside Julia of course =), Madison, TJ, Jared, Me, Lynny.

Swine Flu, Pictures, and Piranhas

2009-10-20T21:48:00.000-07:00

Alrighty, so I have survived the swine flu!! It knocked me out for quite some time. I didn't eat for 4 days so I am still trying to get my strength back and I think that is one of the worst parts of the whole thing. Another horrible part of it was getting tested for the flu. If you ever have the choice, DON'T GET TESTED... they take these long Q-tips and shove them up both nostrils and it feels like they go 6 inches past your eye balls. It was a horrible experience....

But I know I am a wimp .

Anyways, these are some pictures that I found on my camera.

Story time with Lynny.

I think Dad took these when we were at the zoo.

These are some videos that I'm guessing Kelly took. Very talented!! =)

This is a video of our Piranhas. We had some other ones that got really big (the size of your palm) but they died over the break between semesters. Here they are eating. This isn't the best video. I have a better one but of course it is to big to upload to my blog so this will have to do.

2009-08-08T11:50:00.000-07:00

Ok, so it has been a while since I have done one of these.

I went camping with some of my buddies the other day. It was fun.

Just a pretty picture from the drive to our camping spot.

Before that a bunch of my friends and I had a 'White Trash' party. My old roommate and his wife live in a trailer so we thought it fitting. Sorry if that is offensive to anyone....

Here we are attempting to eat pickled pigs feet. It didn't go over to well on my part =}

Yesterday Laren Pike and I Went on a VERY long trip to Yellowstone and the Teton National Parks. We did a little fishing in Yellowstone (I caught some kind of little sucker fish about 3 inches long... first fish all year!!) On the way back to the car Laren spotted this elk head. It was HUGE!!! I really wish it wasn't illegal to take this out of the park but unfortunately it is. It would have looked really cool hanging on our living room wall! Oh well.

Just a pretty picture from the Teton Park.

Ebony Opening Her Present!

2009-04-22T21:05:00.000-07:00

Alrighty, so I thought I would try this again today and for some reason it worked in about 7 minutes instead of the 2 1/2 hours. Who knows...

Riverdance/ Jali/ Ebony

2009-04-21T18:53:00.000-07:00

Alrighty! So after about a 8-10 year wait, my dream of seeing Riverdance came true. Dad and I headed up to South Bend Wednesday morning to see the matinée. It started about 5 minutes late which had me uneasy in my seat =} But as soon as it started I knew I got my money's worth! It was so cool. It gave me chills. I was surprised a little bit with how many vocal and instrumental numbers that they had. I would have liked to see more of the dancing but I was still happy. I was very sad when it finally came to an end...

So TJ asked me to take some pictures of my dog to put up so he could see her. He also asked for a video but I didn't get one, sorry... Also, again, I'm sure Brynn would love to see Jali!! And perhaps the other little guys.

The picture below is very rare. One night mom actually invited the dog to get on her bed so Jali took advantage of it and found a nice little spot on Dad's side of the bed.

When I was home I bought a "present" for TJ and Julia's new Rabbit. (It was a harness which she really doesn't like but..) But I thought it would be fun to wrap it for her and see if she would tear it open. So I came up with this great idea to cover it with carrots so she could eat them off to "open it". Below is a video of her doing that. Well, if it actually loads. Its been trying to load for over an hour now... is that normal...

Ok, so it has now been over 2 1/2 hours and it still didn't load. What's the deal??

Sorry

2009-02-20T22:33:00.000-08:00

So, I'm not sure why the pictures all went in a line going down. I had them clumped up when I was making it so I'm not sure why they got all stringed out...

I'm also no sure if you can blow up the pictures. I don't know how to adjust for that.

Cali '09

2009-02-20T21:03:00.000-08:00

Alrighty, so it has been awhile since I last posted something so we'll see if I can remember how to do this.

Last weekend I flew down to Southern California with one of my friends to go golfing and visit some families that we knew from our mission. This was our second annual winter golfing trip. Next year is going to be in Hawaii!!

When we were there we played 3 1/2 rounds of golf, went to Disneyland, did a little star gazing, and went to the beach. Before we left the weather said it was suppose to be rainy the whole weekend... =( Never-the-less we were determined to do all of the activities that we had planned and have fun doing it. And sure enough, it was pretty rainy. The good thing was that every time that we went to do one of our 'activities' the rain would stop! Friday we started the day waking up to a little rain but when we left to go golfing it stopped. As soon as we were done golfing and got in our rental car (a PT Cruiser, Convertible) it started pouring. That night we headed over to D-Land and it was pouring the whole way there. As soon as we entered the gates to the park it started trickling off and with in 10 minutes the rain had stopped. Some blue skies even come through! It was great! However, since it was raining so hard before we got there all of the princesses went in side and didn't come back out after the rain stopped. This was my second trip to D-Land and both times I missed the princesses and all the characters for that matter. Oh well.

The rain did get us a little when we were in Hollywood putting our hands in the actors handprints (I know, very touristy...) It also rained a little when we were at the beach but that even cleared up into a very beautiful day with sunny skies! We were so lucky.

One bad thing did happen monday morning. We went out and got in our rental car and the battery had died so we couldn't get it to start. As soon as we pulled out of the rental car place some battery light came on and a low tire light also came on. I think it is a scam because when we were telling them about it when we checked it back in they were going to charge us for it but luckily I had a AAA membership card so they came out and fixed it for us.

It was also REALLY good to see some of the families that we got to know pretty well when we were there on our missions! That probably made me the happiest!

Alright, here are some pictures:

Me and Kevin (Forbis)

Can you see my ball on the bridge? That was the kind of day I was having...

I thought the little ones might like this picture. Its Mater and Lightning Mcqueen!

This is the family that took us to Disney Land, the Zendejas. Forbis and I taught the three of them (mom and 2 daughters) and then they were baptized after I was transfered. They are so much fun!

Jeff, my old roommate came up from San Diego and met me at D-Land.

This is the Emerson family. We taught Kevin (Brother Emerson) when we were together. Forbis and I went to their sealing a couple years ago. One of the greatest experiences ever!! They are such an awesome family!

This is Brother and Sister Leavitt. I served in their ward for six months. We stayed there a couple nights.

At the beach! We went to Santa Monica Pier

I made a little sand castle just to say that I did =)

Bay Watch!!!

We ate at the Bubba Gump Shrip Co. for lunch. Its a restaurant inspired by Forest Gump. It was fun but the food really wasn't all that good.

RIVERDANCE!

2008-12-16T15:38:00.000-08:00

Well, I finally did it!!! I bought a ticket and I am going to be going to a Riverdance performance in April. For those of you who do not know, I love Riverdance. I have been wanting to go to a performance for years (nearly ten years) but for some reason it has never worked out for me. I almost went last year but out of the blue the performance dates got changed to a week when I would be in school in Idaho. I was sooooo upset. A couple weeks ago I randomly found out that Riverdance was going to be in Indiana in 2009, so I checked the dates and it turns out that it will be there between my winter and summer semesters so I am going to fly myself home and go to it with my dad! (my mom didn't want to go) Its going to be in South Bend Indiana. Kind of a long drive to get there but it will be totally worth it!

Besides that, I am finally done with this past semester. Now I just need to start studying for the GRE. I am going to be taking it when I am home over Christmas... Not looking forward to that...

Ostrich Hides

2008-09-20T16:50:00.000-07:00

When I was in Colorado I was talking with Laurie about some of the things I have made out of the ostrich hides and how I am going to try to make Lynny a purse for Christmas so I thought I would put some pictures up for you guys to see them. I'm not sure who has seen these or not...

This is the scripture case that I made for TJ before he left for his mission. It has some stains on it from when they were in their accident after their wedding so it doesn't look all that great right now.

This is a little book cover that I made.

I also tried making some slippers a few years back but that was a huge disaster. I stopped after one. I would put a picture of that on here but it is back in Indiana. I REALLY hope this purse for Lynny will turn out. Knock on wood for me!

Rafting Pics

2008-09-11T18:06:00.003-07:00

These are before we hit the river

This is the boat I was in for the trip

My friend Tyler and the type of boat he was in

Self picture and an example of how you went to the bathroom...

Some of the rapid we did. They don't look as bad in the pictures

If you can look hard enough you can see me in my little blue boat going through these rapids

After the take-out

Before and After

2008-09-10T12:44:00.001-07:00

So I have always wanted to grow my beard out for a month just to see what it would look like. I actually was a little shy of a month when I ended up cutting it (I cut it for a job interview that I don't think I'll be getting...) I thought I would post the before and after pictures for yall to see.

I actually liked the way it looked on me! What do you guys think? Its actually kind of hard to see it in the picture. I already know moms answer =)

I also decided to just chop it all off, hair on the head, hair on the face...

When I get a chance I will also post pictures from the colorado trip and from my rafting trip...

New Car

2008-08-28T21:39:00.000-07:00

So it is true. I got a new car. I guess mom and dad have wanted me to have a newer car with less miles on it (my blazer has over 204000 miles) because of all of the driving that I do. Personally I think my blazer still has a lot of life in it. But I guess in the long run it does make sense. It was heart breaking to get a new one because I love the blazer (although I do like the Jeep as well =) And SOME of you have question how I am able to get a new car with my financial struggles over the past few months... Mom and Dad are helping me with the finances. It is just going to take me a very long time to pay it off =) Dad actually scouted out this Jeep when I was visiting Katy. Its a manual, so that will be nice! Remind me of the days with the little red mazda.

I am actually having TJ and Julia drive the blazer back out to school and I will probably try to sell it there. If it doesn't sell I might give it to TJ and Julia, but Julia didn't seem to excited about that. If any of you girls want it let me know! Lynny, if you really want it maybe we can figure out somehow to get it back to you! We just needed to take it back to school to get all of my junk there...

Just a picture of my dog!

The Near Death of My Dog...

2008-08-24T09:05:00.000-07:00

So TJ and Julia and Pam are here right now and last night we were in the family room watching a DVD. We were all sitting on the chairs and couch and my dog was sitting in her bed right in front of the fireplace. About 40 minutes into the DVD we hear a crash and we all look up to see that the big clock above the fireplace had fallen on to the ledge right bellow it. Then in like slow motion the clock started to tip forward and sure enough it went crashing down to the ground. It seriously landed right next to my dogs bed even hitting part of her padding. It was the loudest noise ever and of course scared the living daylights out of Jali. I have never felt her heart beat so fast. It was one of the scariest moment of my life. I could just see the clock falling on top of Jali, luckily it didn't but still. So the moral to this story is, always hang your clocks with nails and dont use those sticky tack hanger tag things...

Update

2008-08-24T08:29:00.000-07:00

Alrighty, well its been a while since I last posted something and I'm sure everyone has heard most of this. I ended up surviving my white water rafting trip in Oregon. It was a lot of fun and pretty dang scary at times. I forgot my camera in my friends truck so currently I don't have any pictures of that adventure to show you. I rafted down the river in an inflatable kayak (not as sketchy as it sounds). It was really fun but since it was a smaller boat I would "feel" the rapids a lot more compared to my friend who was in a much bigger boat. After the first day I think I must have gotten a severe case of sun poisoning because I got pretty sick. I woke up the next day and my throat felt swollen shut, I was congested, and my body ached. I tried powering through it and ended up rafting for about 4 hours. We then took a break and my friends dad said I could jump in the supply raft with him to take a break. I ended up taking him up on the offer.
This perhaps might have been my wisest decision ever. Not much longer after I got in his raft we ended up hitting the most ferocious part of the river. It was down a narrow canyon and the rapids were pretty crazy. The raft that I was ridding in kept bouncing off the rock walls that all around us. The whole time I was rafting in my kayak I was never bucked out into the water, although I came close, but if I was kayaking down that stretch of river I'm pretty sure it would have done me in. I actually kind of wish I had got to try it just to see what would have happened! All in all it was a blast and hopefully I get the pictures sent to me and that they turned out so I can post some on here.

After the rafting I went back to Katy and Clays for a few more days. It was a lot of fun hanging out with them and seeing Jack walking for the first time! He's a very cute/busy little guy =) Now since it has taken me so long to post anything on here Katy actually beat me to putting the good pictures from the trip on her blog but I'll probably repost some of them and describe them differently.

So I was trying to teach Jack how to chase the birds in their back yard. He was having a blast running full speed at them but of course his full speed isn't extremely fast as of yet so I put him on my shoulders so he could go a little faster and get closer to the birds before they took off! You can kind of see it in the picture but he didn't really 'hold on' with his hands. He would actually rub his hands in circles through my hair. I thought that was pretty funny.

Here we were swimming and again you can kind of see it but he had his little cheek pressed firmly next to my head and he was talking like crazy into my ear the whole time. Of course I couldn't really interpret what he was saying but I imagined different things in my head that seemed to fit with the speed and tone to what he was saying. Some things like "Oh boy lets not go to fast now" "be careful going around that corner, I don't want to slip off your back into the water" Then sometimes it did sound like "faster faster faster!"

A good picture of the Warrens

I liked this one with my sister

Broken Heart in North Dakota

2008-08-04T08:56:00.003-07:00

Well, I am currently sitting in the library waiting to find out if I qualify for the loan I just applied for from the bank. Things changed at work and I am suppose to leave today instead of tomorrow...but I don't currently have the money to pay for gas. (I'm still waiting for a check to clear at midnight tonight) Anyways, I thought I would do another post in the mean time.

Yesterday as I was driving back to the park after work I past some 'roadkill' and it looked interesting so I backed up to see what it was. (I was on a country road so backing up was ok) It turned out to be a Coyote pup and he was still alive. He looked so sad and in pain. He was just laying there breathing really hard. I tried calling dad and mom with no answer then tried Lynny's where she reminded me that they were in church. Dad eventually got back to me and talk to me about him. I wanted to pick him up and try to find a vet to take him to or something but I was afraid to move him and make things worse. I tried describing his injuries to dad and he said it didn't sound like he was going to make it and that the vet would probably just put him down anyways. I also have no money (as mentioned earlier) to pay for the vet bill. Dad reminded me that that would happen. I didn't even think about the fact I would have to pay. So he suggested that I move him off the road and find some shade for him. I very gently did so but unfortunately there was absolutely no shade for the little fellow. Luckily it was pretty over cast so it wasn't to hot. He didn't have much strength, obviously, he was hit by a car, but he did move around a very little bit. It was so sad. I probably spent 30-45 minutes with him before I ended up leaving him. I really wish he had passed away when I was there with him but instead I have no idea how long he laid there suffering. For any of you who might not be a gun lover, this would have been a perfect time to have had my .22 on me to help put him out of his misery, but unfortunately I didn't. The whole situation just broke my heart. I ended up naming him Boris!

Don't worry, the fluid mark in the dirt by his head is not body fluid. I tried pouring a little water by his snout to see if he would react to it and then to get him to drink. He didn't even flinch =(

Disaster?? I guess not!

2008-07-25T11:37:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update. I just got back from the Verizon store to see if they could fix my phone. I told the guy that my phone had gotten wet (not how it got wet =) and he opened it up to look at it. He said that the water indicator sticker didn't change colors at all and that it looked like it should be working. He then took it apart and said everything looked fine and wasn't sure why it was messing up. He then called it in to have them send me a new phone under warranty!! When he was on the phone with the people he found out that they were out of the phone that I have (the Razor) so they were going to send me a brand new phone. The guy was all excited for me because he said it was a much better phone and he has never had someone bring it back in with problems. That made me very happy because previous to falling in the river with it I was having a lot of trouble with that phone. So I guess the moral of the story is that sometimes it is a good thing to fall into a river =)

Disaster...

2008-07-25T08:17:00.000-07:00

Alrighty, so lately I have been working on my own project looking for signs of river otters on some of the rivers up here. By doing this I am walking on all four sides of the bridges that cross my specific river that I am working on looking for their latrine sites. (they supposedly like to go near bridges and things out of the ordinary...) However, the rivers I have been working on have been very relentless. As you will see in the pictures the vegetation is VERY thick and hard to walk through and there are a lot of steep cliffs. I have been walking on the edges of these cliffs because the latrine sites are typically right there on the edges. But since the vegetation has been so thick I haven't been able to see where exactly I am stepping. There have been countless times when I blindly would step and then fall into some random hole and almost break my leg or almost fall off of the cliffs or into the river. It just so happens that the other day I was walking on the grass by the river (the vegetation wasn't bad at all there) and one spot of grass I stepped on didn't have any earth beneath it, instead it was water. Yes, I fell into the river. The crazy part is that the river was probably ankle deep all over EXCEPT for the one spot I fall into. I found the one deep hole in the river. It went up mid chest on me. Ahhh. And I previously had decided to carry my phone with me incase I did fall into a hole or something and break my leg so I could try to call for help. Well, it turned out that I couldn't call for 'help' because my phone is now practically broken. What a disaster....

The picture of the cliff I'm guessing is 15-20 feet even though it doesn't look like it.
The picture of the vegetation is actually over my head there.

And yes, the farmers tan. The same day I fell in the river I was driving the 4-wheeler ALL day and totally forgot to put suntan lotion on. I was already pretty dark from the summer but this made it a little worse =)

My Western Hat

2008-07-05T18:12:00.001-07:00

Alrighty, well to explain this post.... I have wanted a 'cowboy hat' for years and since I am up here in North Dakota I thought that this would be a pretty good area to buy one. Sure enough the mall had a western store so I went in and talked to some guy about them (I wore him out with questions) and ended up buying one. It feels really weird and I'm not so sure how it looks so I need my sisters or whoever to give me your HONEST opinion. I know mom will be honest with me about it! My feelings wont be hurt. I figure if all else fails then I'll have a nice hat for decoration!

One of the pictures is of me holding "pepperweed" another is of a cool cloud.

Take 3.5

2008-07-03T09:50:00.001-07:00

And here are a few of me hard at work =)

Take 3.4

2008-07-03T09:48:00.001-07:00

A couple more that I liked of the fishers. One has 2 fishers in the picture which is a little unusual to see. We think they must be juveniles.

Take 3.3

2008-07-03T09:46:00.001-07:00

And some more...

Take 3.2

2008-07-03T09:43:00.001-07:00

Here are just some other pictures I thought were neat or funny.

ND Take 3

2008-07-03T09:40:00.001-07:00

Here are some pictures of the fishers that we have been looking for. These are some of the better ones that have gotten!

Take 2.2

2008-06-05T16:14:00.000-07:00

Some things we are looking for, otter track and their scat. Then here are 3 pictures of the cabin I am living in. The first 2 are from either end then the third is just from the front. It's cozy!

take 2.1

2008-06-05T16:08:00.000-07:00

The first 3 pictures are of the "crew" at the Abraham Lincoln State Park. (me, Steve, Maggie) These are the 2 grad students I am working with. The next 2 pictures are of us cutting up dead beaver to use for bait on the track plates. I had to use the less grew-sum pictures because I think my friends got mad when I posted those on my facebook account...

Take 2

2008-06-05T15:59:00.001-07:00

Alright, so I once again am having problems with this blog thing. After I upload the pictures they show up in my screen as computer language or something so I don't know where to insert my comments. I'll just do that in a next post or something.

North Dakota- Take 1

2008-06-01T18:34:00.000-07:00

Well I thought I would post a few pictures that I have so far. Some of the better pictures are on other cameras right now so it might take a little while to get those. I forgot to get pictures of my cabin so those will come later. I also will post some from my trip to Lynny's once I get them from her. (Again, some might be repeats from what she posted) Anyways, things are going great here in North Dakota. We started doing otter survey's last week which entailed us walking up and down river banks for HOURS a day (7-8 straight hours of walking) looking for otter signs such as their scat and prints, latrine sites and slides. Its been fun learning how to recognize these things and to just be out in the "woods". However, my feet and ankles are KILLING ME =) Oh well, hopefully I'll get into shape soon! I also am getting a killer farmers tan and I shaved my head to help find the ticks that are over running my body. They are insane out here.

Some guys dog followed us for about 5 miles. Here he is trying to get my lunch.

This is me counting scats at a latrine site.

Well, I tried uploading more pictures but this thing is acting up, like always, and it isn't letting me. Maybe later...

?'s

2008-05-26T18:46:00.000-07:00

Well, I guess I will try to give this thing of Lynny's a try

50 Odd Things About Me
1. Do you like blue cheese? No
2. Have you ever smoked heroin? Absolutely not.
3. Do you own a gun? You bet
4. What flavor do you add to your drink at sonic? I always get the orange cream slush
5. Do you get nervous before doctor appointments? With my track record, you better believe it =)
6. What do you think of hot dogs? I agree with Lynny "I like them best when they are grilled. I have a hard time eating them if they are boiled."
7. Favorite Christmas movie? A Muppets Christmas Carol
8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning? Pop
9. Can you do push ups? Of course
11. What's your favorite piece of jewelry? Don't have any
12. Favorite hobby? Right now I guess cooking, but also fishing, golf...
14. Do you have A.D.D.? No
15. What's one trait you hate about yourself? Well, I don't have the greatest self confidence or self esteem
16. Middle name? Todd
17. Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment. I'm tired, thirsty, and my hand itches
18. Name 3 things you bought yesterday? Nothing, it was sunday
19. Name 3 drinks you regularly drink? Dr. Peper, pop, water
20. Current worry? Yall would just laugh so...
21. Current hate right now? I'd agree, gas prices
22. Favorite place to be? Home
23. How did you bring in the New Year? Ha ha, as always, with my dog...
24. Where would you like to go? Anywhere and everywhere. I just want to travel
25. Name three people who will complete this? My 3 sisters
26. Do you own slippers? Only one. I tried making a pair out of an ostrich hide but it was highly unsuccessful so I stopped after one.
27. What shirt are you wearing? One of my Badger Creek shirts
28. Do you like sleeping on satin sheets? As long as my clothes don't stick to the sheets I don't really care.
29. Can you whistle? Nope
30. Favorite color? Dark green
31. Would you be a pirate? Sure why not, I'd give it a try. but I'd be a good pirate
32. What songs do you sing in the shower? A mixture of songs
33. Favorite girl's name? Emma
34. Favorite boy's name? Casey or Jes
35. What's in your pocket right now? Chapstick, keys, and a knife
36. Last thing that made you laugh? Watching the video of Jonathan on the Detro's Blog
37. Best bed sheets as a child? The only ones I can remember had fishes and fishing poles on them, but my clothes stuck to them...
38. Worst injury you've ever had? 3 broken fingers that kept me from playing in the one football game I would have been able to play in my senior year. I didn't think they were that bad but my coach wouldn't let me play. It was very devastating
39. Do you love where you live? I don't really know "where" I live right now
40. How many TVs do you have in your house? I have one in my room back out at school
41. Who is your loudest friend? Ashley
42. How many dogs do you have? One, the cutest dog ever
43. Does someone have a crush on you? Well, you typically don't let that person know when you have a crush on them so I wouldn't know
45. What is your favorite book? Unfortunately I'm not the biggest reader
46. What is your favorite candy? Either Reese's Piece's or Peanut Butter Cups
47. Favorite Sports Team? Denver Bronco's and Penn State Nittany Lions
48. What song do you want played at your funeral? I don't care, I wont be hearing it
49. What were you doing 12 AM last night? Trying to sleep
50. What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up? I need to pack and hit the road

Visit With Brandon

2008-05-20T11:11:00.000-07:00

I think I forgot to mention that on my way home from school and after I visited Christina I stopped by Champaign to see my best friend Brandon. We just got some lunch but I got a couple pictures with him, his kid, and his wife. I'm not sure how well you guys actually knew Brandon but I thought I would put them up anyways. Oh, he also drove over the other week for a visit and to see the new house and while he was here we went golfing while mom watched his son!!

Earthquake!

2008-05-03T17:10:00.000-07:00

So I forgot to mention that when I was in St. Louis I went through an earthquake. You guys might have heard about it on the news. When I was in California, one of the things I wanted was to experience an earthquake, just to see what it felt like. Of course I didn't want it to be bad or have anyone or anything get hurt but I just wanted to know what it would feel like. So my wish almost came true when I was in St. Louis..... but of course, I slept right through it.... The next morning EVERYONE I talked to about it said that it woke them up because everything was shaking and so forth. I'm a light sleeper, how did I sleep through that? Oh well, I guess I can still say that I went through one, right?

Visit to Lynny's

2008-04-30T13:33:00.000-07:00

After I got home to Indiana I drove up to Michigan to see Lyndsay and her family! Whats another 12 hours on the road.... Anyways, we had a lot of fun, or at least I did =) Lyndsay and I actually made a quilt out of a bunch of my old T-shirts that I had laying around. I still feel bad about that becasue I HAD NO IDEA how much work was actually involved. But we managed to pull it off and I think it looks really nice. I also went to the movies with her and the kids to see Alvin and the Chipmunks. I thought it was a pretty good movie, but it was mainly fun to be there with David and Madison. (Jared went home with Jonah because he wasn't feeling well)

This is a picture at Jared's bus stop with him and Maddison.

With David after tumbling class. I hate to break it to you TJ, PJ, and Clay but I'm pretty sure that I am Davids favorite uncle!! I've known this since he was just a baby but didn't want to say anything, but I think it is time for yall to know.

With Jonathan shortly after waking up. One of the cutest pictures of him ever!!

This is the finished quilt. Maddison actually took the picture and Lynny and I were amazed at how well she did.

Here are a couple pictures of me sewing the quilt. Don't let the picture be misleading though because Lynny did most of the sewing. For some reason every time I tried the machine would get jammed. She worked so hard to get this thing done before I left!! So thank you again

Visit to Christina

2008-04-29T19:53:00.001-07:00

After I left Keddy's I stopped by my friend Christina's house for a couple days in St. Louis. We were both extremely tiered and worn out from the semesters at school that we had finished so we weren't to active. An example of that is we had a Harry Potter marathon and watched all 5 movies! We did however manage to go to the zoo and a Cardinals game.

This first picture is from the zoo of some grizzly bears. I'm actually posting this for Brynn because every time I am around her she mentions bears!! Now I haven't determined if that is because she likes bears or if she is afraid of bears so Kelly, show her at your own determination...

This is at the end of the Cardinals game with Christina. The Cards lost, as do all teams that I go to watch.

Visit to Kelly's x2

2008-04-23T17:45:00.000-07:00

Kelly sent me the pictures that she took while I was there so I thought I would post them. Some of them will be repeats from her page.

This is Brynn at the water shooters. She was such a brave girl!

I was helping Tyler feed his piggy Cow. He was so cute the way he would always say "Dank u"

Swinging on their swing set (I actually helped set that thing up a couple of Christmases ago. It was a pain in

the butt...)

And another.

Here we were checking the tin foil dinner that we were cooking. A word to the wise. When using a dutch oven, make sure that you have enough coals. It was taking so long to cook that we ended up putting the dutch oven in the oven to cook. It took so long that the hash browns that we made and put in the dinner turned almost completely black. It was not very appetizing to eat. Although, it did taste pretty good I thought, given the circumstances.

Visit to Kelly's

2008-04-21T19:14:00.000-07:00

Alrighty, so I am going to give this another shot.

My winter semester ended April 10th and I was going to drive home through Colorado but due to a snow storm I was diverted down through Arizona. Besides the fact that it changed my travel time from about 26 hours to 40 hours of driving this wasn't a bad thing. I was able to stop off in Arizona to visit my sister Kelly and her family! It was a lot of fun. I did a little golfing with PJ, went to Cabelas (my favorite store), hung out with my little niece and nephew, did a little dutch oven cooking, and a bunch of other fun stuff. I can't add any pictures yet because I realized that they were all taken on Kelly's camera so I will have to get her to send them to me. (although she has a bunch posted on her blog)

The weather was beautiful there, even a little to hot for me. I am so use to the horrible Rexburg Idaho weather that I just suffered through that it was a little bit of a shock for me.

Golfing in Vegas!

2008-03-08T16:34:00.000-08:00

So I thought I would give this blog thing a shot. I however have no clue what I am doing so I will probably wait to do much with it until I visit my sister Katy who can teach me all that I need to know about it!