It is Written...

Have you ever noticed how some peoples birthdays seem to just stretch on for days? Maybe even weeks? Well my roommate’s birthday is one that continued to be celebrated several days after. I am not complaining as I was able to take part in half-off sushi on Tuesday. I’m not a huge sushi goer, as I have had a few bad experiences with it, but this time around was a turning point for me. I dunno if it was the part that it was only half off or the sushi was delicious. I ordered a California roll and some Asian fry’s. When you order fry’s do you honestly expect the waiter to bring out four foot-long fry’s stacked Lincoln log style? To my surprise that’s how it was served! I was furious that there were only four until I realized that each one was stuffed with who knows what! It turned out to be a tasty surprise. Thanks Mikato’s and Julie.
I love how connected and spontaneous weekends can become. Who would have thought that while playing Mad Gad Friday night at the cabin would lead to the Sunday afternoon film? The correct phrase “Interview with the Vampire” was splurted out by my roommate. No one had a clue what that was until he said it was a movie. We ended up watching it today. It turned out to be a pleasant surprise as we witnessed Brad Pit, Tom Cruise, Antonio Banderez, and Kristen Dunst wreak havoc as vampires. Take that Twilight! Speaking of twilight, I was privileged to take part in a mid-night hike to the Y with only the light of the moon. It was freezing.

Every once in a while you find yourself receiving that phone call that just sends you rushing to the rescue. For some their wife’s water broke, others their roommate’s car just got towed, or a flat tire. But for me, my call was a request to assists two vagabonds in a special ritual and ceremony; so I obviously found myself speeding around south Provo to take part in. I wasn’t given many details about the origin of this particular event but I was intrigued and honored to be included. My individual part of this extravaganza was to be the transporter of the pledge and photographer. I felt I did a good job documenting this most important occasion. I won’t go into too much detail as in the masterminds behind this will be writing the full account shortly; I wouldn’t want to steal their thunder. But I will note that I have found myself extremely sore from climbing a special tree chimpanzee style. I mean it had been a while since I last climbed a huge tree, tonight was also the first time I may have been legitimately called a tree hugger.

Bonfire, Baking, and Beams

What is the relationship between: a Bonfire, Balancing Beams, and Baking a Birthday Cake? Subliminally you may have thought the capital letters made up my average report card, and you are right! But if you thought a little harder you probably figured out these events made up my weekend. I attended my first gymnastic competition Friday night. BYU’s gymnastic team dominated the meet. I was very impressed with how each girl was able to jump, flip, twist, and stick their landings.
After an evening full of watching girls balance on four inch beams, flipping off the vault, and rotating several times on the bars; we headed up the canyon for a bonfire. Bonfires bring together quite the random group of individuals, but that is the beauty of those events. This night was no different. I knew many of those who were huddled around the blazing fire, but an interesting part about the night was when we were surprised as unknown car showed up and decided to join our group. I’m not even sure how it all worked out, but it did. I was too busy being captivated with the millions of stars in the clear sky. I love space and find it so fascinating; astronomy was one of my favorite classes I’ve taken. I used to be able to find and name all the constellations, but unfortunately I’m now lucky to point out a handful.
With my roommate’s birthday this weekend, my friend and I took advantage of it by baking an intense birthday cake. Baking is an all around good thing, I’d day. It’s relaxing, enjoyable, and the end product you can show off and eat. We went all out and baked a double layer chocolate cake with nutella frosting. You should have been there; all I can say is it did look as good as it tasted, it was amazing!

GoldenEye's and Masquerades!

Every now and then there is the opportunity when one is able to dress up for a night out on the town. I enjoy these moments thoroughly when I am able to pull out my favorite lime-green colored dress shirt, and a bright colored tie. This weekend’s special event was a semi-formal Masquerade ball birthday party. So I made sure my double-winders knot was perfect, and my shoes were shined. Once I finished, my roommate and I left to pick up our dates; which ended up with odds in our favor, two too one. They were dressed to kill as they say. It worked. As we arrived to the large villa, we found the party was already bumping. We were each given a decorated mask and asked to participate in a photo opt to document this celebration. We enjoyed dancing to some interesting music, and eating some tasty munchies.

James Bond movies are classics. The action, the awesome gadgets, the girls, the spy’s, the explosions, the girls, ’Q’,007, the conspiracy’s, and the bond girls. I was pleased to see that a television channel took the adequate amount of time to air these great films. There was a marathon of Bond films all week, I believe or maybe just the weekend. The most played was Goldeneye. One of the all time best Bond movies ever. It may have been all the hours I spend growing up on this Nintendo 64 game that created my love for this Bond film. Surprisingly the TV channel had the same feelings I had for this movie as it seemed to play three times in a row.

Free concerts rock! Literally…

No Trespassing Signs are Optional

My weekly goal is to fit in at least one hiking adventure. So far I have been able to reach my goal for the last several weeks. My interest in photography; along with my enjoyment of nature and hiking has led me to make this a routine. This week’s hiking destination was stumbled across by my friends during their run. They weren’t able to make it to the top of the peak (for fear of coming in contact of a wild cougar), but that failed attempt led them to try again and they decided to include me this time around. Thank you! Not gonna lie as we started the hike we were all a little skeptical as our shoes were encaked in inches of mud and we were slipping everywhere; but our end point-a random gazebo found at the top of the peak-was just too appealing for us to pass up, so we pressed forward. As we paused to admire some mysterious footprints, a heard of white-tail deer began stampeding down the mountain side. We quickly hid in some shrubbery and started rapidly taking pictures as if we worked for National Geographic. Once the deer were out of our site we continued on our way up the trail. When we reached the gazebo we all began wondering who in the world would build a perfectly good gazebo way out in the middle of nowhere on this hill. The many “No Trespassing” signs, found around the gazebo, to us were optional. We felt this particular gazebo was not getting enough use out of it as it should. We felt obligated to change that-so we made a tasty lunch in the gazebo and began thoroughly exploring around it. While enjoying the breathtaking views; we were privileged to witness some rare creatures called harpies. Luckily those who I came with were quite educated on them, and were able to relate to them in a very intimate way-I’d say they may have been obsessed with them.
Remember to take the path less traveled.
One of the greatest reliefs in life is when you finish speaking in sacrament meeting.

TV Remotes and Olympics

Ever wonder how you can cut back your amount of time spent watching TV?? My roommates and I learned the hard way… Our TV remote mysteriously stopped working one day. I believe all of my roommates found this out on their own attempts of trying to change the channel with the remote having no success. After multiple attempts of grabbing the remote, rushing to the couch, getting comfortable and ready to view some worthless, time wasting TV show, I found myself clicking the remote buttons furiously with no luck of the channels changing. Everyone knows that it is not worth the effort to watch TV without a working remote. It is just too big of a pain for some, or an inconvenience for others, or just not appealing; when you don’t have the ability to change the channel without moving your body. I fall in all three of those categories and found myself not watching any TV until my roommate who owns the TV decided to reprogram the remote so it works correctly.

To pay tribute to the US dominating the 2010 Olympics I decided to participate in one of my favorite pastimes-snowboarding. So in order to fully enjoy the slopes: I took the day off from school Thursday, rounded up a good friend and began blazing down the mountain. Both of us weren’t familiar with our way around Snowbird, yet we thoroughly enjoyed getting lost and finding our own way down the mountain. We found ourselves in some treacherous terrain one run, where we had an encounter with some rather intense cliffs. Through it all the only downside was the fog which was so thick you had a hard time telling apart the snow and the moguls. This created a great workout though. Take that p90x oh and see ya in the 2014 Olympics!!

The “Give the Coke to a Stranger”

Four day weekends are hard to come by at Brigham Young University, there what you may call literally once in a blue moon… Yeah definitely Cougar blue… This weekend business writers, including myself were asked to give a stranger a coke and write about it. If we were at any other University one might be sketched out with the words stranger and coke in the same sentence. The weekend was packed with outdoorsy adventures which led a limited amount of time to drop the coke off. It started off with a wintery hike up American Fork Canyon on Friday. Early Saturday morning the weekend took a turn to the top of Little Cottonwood canyon for some cabin fever. Snowmobiling didn’t seem like the best place to find a stranger to give them the coke so I just enjoyed my time plowing through the mountains and digging myself out of 5 feet of snow. Sunday was a day to rest and recuperate from all of that digging and lack of sleep. Monday seemed like the perfect day to make the coke assignment happen. I went to the usual store to purchase the beverage, Smiths. Having no clue who I was going to be the lucky recipient of the beverage, as I was driving out of the Smith’s parking lot; I stumbled across a homeless man sitting on the corner by R.C. Willey who looked parched. I rolled down my window and wished the man a happy Presidents day as I gave him the coke.

Hyke.

<-Big Hollow Springs
I am on this hiking/photography phase right now where that is all I want to do. This world is so pretty on many levels and I want to capture it with my Nikon d5000. Three winter hikes took place this week: Rock Canyon, Big Hollow Springs, and Battle Creek Falls. Rock Canyon brought on a gorgeous sunset; plus a night scene with the lit-up Provo Temple. Big Hollow Springs was a surprise; I’ve never done this hike and I didn’t know what to expect. The lush green moss stood out so well surrounded by the white snow. This spring was worth seeing even if you had snow up to your knees when you ventured off the trail. Battle Creek Falls is already slowly melting away, yet the icy falls is always worth witnessing.

What makes a horror film, actually scary? This weekend we experienced the classic old-school movie, Halloween. This 40 year old film’s music is what created the creepy atmosphere for me, along with the Cook’s haunted cabin hidden in Sundance.

You cannot ‘one up’ a testimony-period.