BBQ Heaven

A bunch of the gang got together to chow down at Joe Morley's restaurant last Friday and I have to say that it was some of the best brisket and baked beans I have had in a long time. It was fun to have a big group together again. It makes me miss the Super Bowl barbecue at the Farm and of course the Gluttonfest. However I think I can safely say that after eating a large quantity of beans that I have significantly contributed to the amount of methane present in Salt Lake County the last two days and I think my coworkers would appreciate it if I didn't eat the beans anymore.

When Life Gives You Lemons....

I saw this story on the news a couple of days ago and finally got around to finding some pictures. Lola is a seven week old kitten in Denver that was born with her back legs too long. Determined to get around she flips her hind end up and walks quite capably on her front paws. Pretty cool.

Bloomington Videos

Well I wanted to share the videos of Kellen and Kira on the rope swing so I broke down and got my own youtube account. Enjoy...

Kellen




Kira

Bloomington: Attempt Deux

I was really bummed that I couldn't go to the last Bloomington trip and my attempt was almost foiled by my supervisor again this time but I finally made it. I love Bloomington, this lake has to be one of the coolest places to camp especially with the addition of the wicked awesome rope swing. I was looking forward to lighting off some "noise making devices" under the cover of darkness but to my chagrin there were more people there this weekend than I have ever seen before. Not people just hiking in and leaving either, we had to scavenge for a camping spot for about 30 minutes before we found something that would accommodate the tent. So it was kind of crappy that it was so crowded but we still found a pretty decent spot and had a small fire. I found that I always end up bringing too much crap, I even thought I was packing light but I still didn't use half of what I packed in. I don't know that I will ever be able to truly pack light. The water is still freezing cold or as I like to call it "hurty cold" but I got numb after the initial shock wore off. I was attempting to call Ryan a pansy for not going in the water all the way to fetch a log for Kade, Lori's nephew but it backfired on me. I attempted to prove that Ryan was being silly by making my way into the water up to my knees alongside him. Then I ended up performing the same shivering dance maneuvers, thinking about the well being of my children and debating whether I was really going to go in or not. So Kade ended up throwing my sandal into the lake and I made him go get it; so the youngest of us all ended up being the manliest by taking the plunge first. Kudos Kade. I ended up only going off the rope swing once and now I wish I would have done it more because it was a whole lot easier than jumping off the cliff and probably higher too but oh well, next year. I did jump off the cliff twice but I will admit it did take a lot of standing at the edge and staring down at the water asking myself why I wanted to jump off a nice ledge. There was a cameo by Gollum which I think caught us all by surprise, luckily I got a picture before he lunged off the cliff after his precioussss. Sorry Ryan I couldn't resist. All in all it was a great trip and I look forward to many more in the future.


The players in this little adventure (doing the Ryan pose) were from left to right: Me, Kira, Ryan, Lori and Kade, McCall and Kellen. If I spelled some names wrong I apologize, leave me a comment and I will correct them.

1 Year, 22 Months

Well... It's official. One year ago today the love of my life began her journey as a missionary. It is also 22 months since our first kiss this week. I can't believe how fast it has gone by. Not to say that it hasn't seemed to crawl by a lot of times. It has definitely been one of the most challenging and rewarding years of my life. As I look back I am actually grateful for the opportunity. I think that when people say that someone completes them or makes them a better person it is completely true. But I think that relying on someone else to keep you in line isn't really a good thing either. I will be the first to agree that Julie helped me change to be a better person but this time waiting for her has given me the chance to be the man I want to be for myself so that I can be better for her. I know that we will continue to help each other with our weaknesses and grow but I have also learned a lot from being separated. Hopefully the next six months goes by fast.

Here are some more pictures that I like. If you can't tell I love Julie and the ocean.

Crazy Karnazes

I've been reading a lot lately about a guy named Dean Karnazes. He is a well known long distance runner and now he's planning on running 50 marathons in 50 days in 50 states. Yeah, you read it right. I didn't believe it when I first heard about it a couple of weeks ago but Dean and his trainers both fully believe that he can do it. He has actually had to work to gain 8% body fat to be able to keep his body from eating his muscles over the runs. I believe he is normally around 4%. All the money that is raised goes to a foundation called Karno Kids to help kids become more active. I think it is really cool. I still don't really see it being possible but if he does complete even half of his goal he will completely shatter the conceptions of what the human body is capable of. Here is a link to the official webpage. I think that having a lot of K's in a title is kinda krazy though. It reminds me of all the country stores and gas stations still run by good old boys in rural Texas, like Karl's Kountry Korner. The run starts September 17th.

Things That Must Go

One of my favorite things on the radio is the "Things That Must Go" portion of the Radio From Hell talk show on X-96. I had been compiling a long list of my own things that must go and now that I am sitting down to write them I am drawing a blank. So I'll give it a go but I'm sure there will be more additions.

1. People at the gym getting agitated with people filling up water bottles. I don't really feel like getting off the treadmill or bike every 10 minutes to go take a sip of water. I'm sorry that you get dehydrated lifting weights and sitting around flexing your muscles in front of the mirror. You're just going to have to wait 20 seconds.

2. People that cut through parking lots and think they have the right of way. If I'm in an actual lane and you're cutting across parking stalls and try to cut me off I'm not going to stop.

3. Parents letting their kids drive like idiots. It seems like there have been way too many teen deaths this last couple of weeks caused by bad driving. Why do you buy your sixteen year old a GT Mustang?

Anyways.. I think that's all for now. I haven't written anything for a while obviously; so I wanted to throw up something.

Done and Done

The time on the clock is from the Olympic distance start which was 30 min. earlier than me.

Well one of my life goals has finally been accomplished. I completed a sprint triathlon in just under two hours, officially 01:59:35.09. I am pretty pleased because I was honestly thinking I would be about two and a half hours. I really had no idea what was going on when I got to the park and I set up all of my crap as good as I could in the transition area by the water. As it got closer to the time for my group to start though I overheard someone talking about another transition area. I was like "what? there is a different transition area?". So I got to grab all of my running stuff and run three blocks, drop it off and then run back in sandals. By the time I got back to put my wetsuit on the announcer was giving the five minute warning for my start. So that was kind of scary. The water was really warm so it wasn't bad at all. I was able to swim the whole 750 meters without stopping which was nice. I guess I actually probably swam more like 820 meters though because the current kept pushing me off course and so I think I was zigzagging all over the place between the three buoys ( I don't know if that is spelled right). And the wetsuit wasn't real flattering but there were a lot of people there with some extra white fluffiness about them so I didn't feel too bad. Getting on the bike only took about three minutes but that is when I realized how much of a difference having a road bike makes. People were flying by me like crazy and I was peddling just about as fast as I could. The bike took me 52 minutes, another three in transition and then I started the run. At first my calves were all tight and I was kind of stumbling/jogging and then there was the hill. I ended up walking for quite a ways until my calves loosened up. Then after jogging for only a couple of minutes I got a killer side ache and slowed down again. I figure I probably walked about half of the 5k but oh well. I did it. I still have a lot of room to improve but I am just glad I got started. I think I am going to work on my running speed for the next little while before I try to another triathlon and I am definitely going to rent a road bike for the next one. I really think we should all try to run a half marathon together next year. Maybe Eric and Laura could pick one out for us. I am thinking that for my next triathlon I should be able to shoot for an hour and a half with a road bike and being able to actually run the whole 5k.

I was just looking at the results and trying to figure out my actual placing and as far as I can tell its something like this: 182 overall out of about 339, 99/200 for men, and last place for my division. The web site that has the results breaks stuff down kind of odd so that might not be super accurate. Because the overall numbers include Olympic distance people. There were 220 sprint distance participants total but I don't know exactly where I was in that group.

Here are some more pictures.

The swim course. There were three buoys in a triangle about 250 meters apart.
Pasty white goodness, in tighter than skin wetsuit. Yeah I know I look good.
Swim start.
Coming out of the water, attempting to remove the wetsuit.
Finishing the bike.

D Day

Well, it's finally here. I participate in my first triathlon tomorrow. I feel kind of nervous because I really don't know how everything works yet. It's not like you just show up, get your number and start running. I have to take a lot of crap but it's definitely going to be worth it. At least training for this ordeal has got me to enjoy exercise again. Over the last 11 weeks I have exercised between 2 to 3 hours a day 5 days a week. I'm still no where near where I want to be at running but I have managed to drop a couple of pants sizes, 15 pounds and about 6 percent body fat. I also listened to about 12,000 pages worth of audio books. So all in all I'm pretty pleased with my progress. I think my next goal is going to be a half marathon and then an Olympic size triathlon. I am beginning to realize though that my goal of being 180 pounds is probably a bit crazy unless I don't have any muscle and look like the anorexic Olsen twin. Well... It's also the last week for my chemistry class too so I better go back to the studying.