spring break

Last week was spring break. Highlights included:
-Soaking up UV rays at Lava Hot Springs. The water was too hot, but the sun was just right.
-Being asked by a Filipina (who is about as dark as is humanly possible without being a native African) if she had gotten any tanner.
-Accompanying Danny and his girlfriend to Arches National Park (yup, I was pretty much a loner).
-Listening to the mice howl at the moon.
-Hiking in the rain.
-Camping in the handicap spot.
-Chasing jack rabbits.
-Danny almost walking off the cliff.
-Chesterfried chicken.

blood of the gods.

I decided to check out my family history the other night so I went to the family search website and typed in the name of my maternal great great grandpa. I discovered that someone has been really busy doing genealogy. 41 generations back I discovered a man named Charlemagne. I thought, HOLY COW! so I kept looking. There were all kinds of kings and queens and dukes and counts and emperors. There was even an archbishop. I didn't think that archbishops were supposed to have children. Anyway, my ancestry went all over Western and Northern Europe- France, Spain (I even have an ancestor named Sancho Sanchez), Italy, England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, and Finland. I traced one line into Scandanavia back to the first and second centuries AD. That's where things became very interesting. I noticed that there were several generations with names like Godwulf, Flocwald, and Freothalf. They all lived in a place called Asgard. So I googled Asgard and read that it is the mythological home of the Norse gods and I discovered that all of those names are figures from norse mythology. Apparently I am a descendent of Norse gods. I am trying to figure out what kind of advantages this gives me in life. Exciting, huh?

Cheney at BYU?

I just read a press release from BYU that VP Dick Cheney has accepted the invitation of the First Presidency of the LDS church to speak at BYU's commencement on April 26. While I will not protest his right to speak or the right of the First Presidency to invite him, I will say that I believe it was a bad move and I'm happier than ever that I chose to go to the U of U instead of BYU- at least my celebration of four years of education will not include listening to Dick Cheney. I hope that none of the apostles invite him to go hunting while he's in Utah. I also hope he is better at controlling his language during commencement speeches than on the Senate floor. Last I heard, "obscene" language is against BYU's honor code.

push ups

My last companion on my mission was a big Tongan fella who loved to eat, gamble, listen to music, play football, and do push-ups. We helped out at the local Boys and Girls club a couple times a week, which consisted mostly of playing pool with each other and the kids. Apparently it isn't fun to play any kind of game unless there is some kind of wager. Well, since we were missionaries and we were poor we couldn't use money so my companion suggested push-ups as a wager. Needles to say- I did more push-ups in those five weeks than I ever had before or have since. I was recently reminded of this when my mom triumphantly announced to me that she did her first two push-ups ever last Sunday. Congratulations Mom!!

Preston, ID

Preston, Idaho is a nice little town. Its were I grew up and lived for the first eighteen years of my life. Last night I decided to see what kind of information was on Wikipedia about my hometown. I discovered that someone has been having fun with Wikipedia's edit feature. Among other things, I learned that Preston was settled by Greek pioneers, the film "Pearl Harbor" was filmed there, and that some of the trees there are 999,000 feet over air level. What the heck is air level? The nearby town of Franklin apparently is home to several "skyscrappers" and the early settlers in Preston were regularly threatened by bands of Samurai warriors. I can't imagine that any school children would ever write a report about Preston, ID, but if they were to, I think it would turn out pretty good if Wikipedia was their primary source. I checked the history of the article and discovered that it gets changed quite frequently, from people both fixing mistakes and adding them. Here's the link if you want to check it out: www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preston%2C_ID

On Being Sexy????

There's something about being told that your sexy that does great things for your ego, regardless of who says it. Monday is ladies night at the Salt Lake Metro jail. Its the night that I get stuck in a room with about twenty female inmates. I have never met more frightening women in my life than some of those women that I work with on Monday nights. I'm pretty sure that they would bite me if I made them mad in any way at all. Anyway, this Monday night I was helping a group of ladies with some math problems. After demonstrating that squaring a number is not the same as multiplying it by two, they began to believe that I possessed some kind of superhuman math powers. I've decided that once a woman believes that you have superhuman powers she automatically falls in love with you. This is bad if you've just convinced a classroom of women who wouldn't hesitate to sink their half rotten teeth into your skin that you have super math powers. Then again, it is nice to be told that your sexy, even if its from a woman who could squash you with her bare hands.

gov. arnold

The other night, Danny and I were bored so we had a little bit of fun with the Google directory. We ended up calling Arnold Schwarzenegger. Turns out that he doesn't actually answer his phone, nor does he take messages. However, you can voice your opinion to an operator if you would like.

prison break

For those of you who aren't intimately acquainted with the intricate details of my everyday life, here's a good place to start: I have a job. I spend four evenings of the week at the Salt Lake Metro Jail, teaching, tutoring, and giving tests to inmates. As an employee of Granite School District I get paid from the state tax revenue- so remember to pay your taxes so that I don't have to get laid off. Anyway, last night I went to give a math test to a few inmates in their pod and interrupted their Monday evening entertainment: Prison Break on FOX. I thought it was really ironic that they were sitting in jail watching Prison Break. I've actually wondered before if they were allowed to watch it- I guess they are.

strange bathroom behavior

The other day I walked into a bathroom in one of the buildings on campus and was immediately caught off guard by something not common to men's restrooms: talking. And not only that, but the person doing the talking was in a stall! I immediately noticed that both of the stalls in the bathroom were occupied and I jumped to the conclusion that guys in the two different stalls were talking to each other. Then I realized that I was only hearing one voice. I finally decided that the guy was either talking on his cell phone or to himself, or that the guy in the other stall just wasn't responding for some reason. But come on, who talks on their cell phone while using the restroom- especially a public one. This experience made me wonder if I've ever had a phone conversation with someone who was sitting on a toilet in a public restroom. For some reason it seems like this might be a more common practice among women. Maybe some ladies can inform me.