School's Out for Summer!

Blessed release! The semester is finally over! I think I will sleep in tomorrow. But not for long. I have to finish up some designs for Doctrine & Covenants Scripture Mastery over at Latter-DayVillage.com. But tonight I am taking my wife out on a date. We are going to a concert (Thanks Hannah!) and out to eat (Thanks Tucanos!) for a day-late birthday celebration. My wife is now 26 years old. When the Primary sang to her on Sunday I almost couldn't sing along, I was so glad that we are married. I love her so much!

I also love her folks! For our birthdays they are paying for half of the cost of season tickets for BYU Football this coming season. That means no more tracking down scalpers or watching home games from the neighborhood clubhouse! Rah Rah rararaaaaahhhh! Go Cougars!

Less Than Five Days

I don't know how much it has set in yet that my world is completely changing in less than five days. I started trickling my things over to Am's condo a few days ago. Hopefully it won't take too long before it feels like OUR place. It'll be SO nice to cut the small commute out of our schedules. And to settle into a married schedule. While dating and including the engagement we've tried to spend as much time together as we could, and our sleep habits have gotten wonky. It'll be nice to be together AND get a good night's rest. But there are so many other adjustments to be made and discussions to have. But I am ready to get into it. I don't think I'll miss being single too much.

School is going well. My classes are fun and challenging, and are definitely learning experiences. I am seeing that my time at S-H was good preparation for UVU, but I still have a lot to learn.

We've decided to go down to Cedar City instead of the Oregon Coast. Less driving, more resting, less cold, more warmth. Oregon will come at some point for us, I still think it will be fun, but we don't need to have a second vacation to recuperate from the first.

Olde Tymes

Just want to thank Bekah and Thomas for hosting a barbecue at their place, as well as Woodine and Alison for allowing the boys along, too. Now a few more have gotten to meet Am! It was great to catch up and to see all of the kiddos interact as well! Now thanks to the (not so) subtle suggestion of Woodine, I'm posting a couple of pictures on this blog!

From BBQ

From BBQ

From BBQ

From BBQ

From BBQ

From BBQ

From BBQ

From BBQ

From BBQ

Han Solo, P.I.

I saw this on the web today. I thought it was hilarious, hope you get a kick out of it, too!

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Alternate Realities

This post may contain spoilers of the new Star Trek, so consider yourself warned.

For anyone that is upset by the direction taken in the new Star Trek, I believe it is well within the realm of possibility of what has transpired over the last 40 years of the franchise.  Every iteration has dealt with time travel, has dealt with the alteration of the timeline.  In fact, some of the best episodes and movies have dealt with these issues.  But even with all the changes, I believe the characters have been given additional layers, but at their core, they are the same individuals they have always been.  Well, at least the original crew is.  Who knows how the events in the new film will trickle down to your favorite characters on the Enterprise-D, DS9, and Voyager.  Were any of those characters ancestors on the Kelvin, or any of the other ships destroyed by the Narada (Nero's ship)?  What about Tuvok? Were his parents or grandparents on Vulcan when...? ...you know.

That drastically changes the timeline.  Some events just won't happen the same way, some won't happen at all.  How does the loss of the Vulcan Science Academy change scientific advancement?  How does this shift the balance of power over time in interstellar politics?

I would like to note that even as poorly received as Star Trek: Enterprise was, it was not jettisoned from the canon of the series.  They do make reference to Scott Bakula's character and his pet beagle.

But will the Klingons of subsequent sequels have head ridges or not?  They made a joke of it in DS9, and then attempted to actually explain it in Enterprise.  Time will tell on that one.

Getting Specific

It snowed here in Utah on April 15th. Let me say it again, it is halfway to May, and it snowed. I and a lot of other people want to know why! But I have a guess, and I'll share it with you.

My brother jokingly asked if I had ordered all the snow. I told him that yes, I had placed a requisition order, but the thing was, I only specified moisture. And I forgot to put a delivery date on the form as well. The shipping guys at Mother Nature, Inc. get that vague order a lot. I think they know what kind of 'moisture' to send at given times of the year, but they do like to have a good time at our expense. I think we all need to get a little more specific with our moisture orders. In the winter, place orders for snow, and the rest of the year order rain. Heaven knows we need the dampness in this dry place.

Deer Valley

I went skiing on Thursday with my brother. I had been kind of nervous about it this week. You see, previous to our trip this week, it had been over 12 years since I had been skiing. Couple that with the news about the actress that died from complications of a seemingly minor fall, my reticence might be justified. It wasn't. We had a blast.  

We thought it would be wise to go on the bunny hill first to see if we remembered how to ski after all these years. But the bunny hill was populated with practically all children and ski instructors or parents. My pride got the better of me so I said we should just take a real run and find out the hard way. Skiing is like riding a bike. Both my brother and I were amazed at how quickly we got up to speed, picking up pretty much where we had left off so long ago.

I was surprised by how long I lasted up there.  I was expecting more of an aerobic experience which would have knocked me out pretty fast.  But it was more like resistance training.  The first run down I was worried about my feet and legs cramping up, but once we got to the bottom and I tightened all the bindings on my boots I was fine.

It was a beautiful day on the slopes.  The snow started getting a tad slushy as the day wore on, which lead to my only fall, which wasn't too bad.  I was going a little too fast and my ski caught an edge in the slushy snow.

We lasted about five hours before our legs threatened to turn to jello. It was nice then that our lift tickets had been given to us rather than buying them ourselves. Skiing is an expensive hobby, but especially so at Deer Valley. The lift passes there go for $80 each! We rented our gear from Outdoors Unlimited at BYU for considerably less than I would have imagined. While renting our stuff, they had a board that listed the conditions at the local ski resorts, with some comments about each place underneath. For Deer Valley they said if you could afford the lift passes, then you could afford to own your own gear.

I like skiing more than tubing or sledding, except for the cost. I have the hardest time with climbing back up after a sledding run, even on relatively small hills. If only they had lifts for sledding! But then, that would increase the cost for that activity as well.