Counting down

It's just exciting sometimes to count down to things.  For example, there are 19 days, 1 hour, 22 minutes and 12 seconds (right now as I'm writing this) until Christmas!  Isn't that exciting?

Anyway, I've been excited for a while to count down the days until school ends!  This is the last week of classes, then next week is finals.  It's been a really difficult semester as far as difficulty of classes go.  Bioinstrumentation especially has been a challenge for me, but it's cool to look back and realize how much I've learned over the course of a single semester.  Another thing that's made school difficult is developing a relationship with Kimberly.  She's been in school this semester too, and since we're both so busy, we have to squeeze in time for each other, and it's been a challenge for each of us at different times to not have the other's attention as much as we'd like.

Another thing to count down to is... CHRISTINE AND PAUL ARE COMING TO VISIT!  Ahem.  Sorry, I got pretty excited there for a second.  The thing is, I really am super-excited.  They're just way fun to hang out with.  Plus, they haven't met my Kimberly yet, so that will be fun for them to get to know each other, since I've talked to each of them about the other.  It's just going to be fun to get to see them again for a while.

What are you counting down to?

I know this is random, but I just have to say,

Kimberly smells so good. :)  For those of you who haven't met her, here's a picture of the beauty on our "Ghost Tours" date in October:

Hiatus

So... it's been about 3 months or so since I even looked at my blog.  Sorry to all of you faithful readers who have been waiting on the edge of your seats, checking every day to see if there was some updated post, some new picture, some record of the proceedings of my life.  I guess I'm just not as into blogging as I used to be.  I just have other things to do to distract me, so I guess I can update you a bit on those things...

School is going well.  I'm taking some pretty difficult classes this semester, and I feel like I'm doing ok in each of them.  I'm learning a lot, and I hope that trend will continue.  (If not, what's the point, right?)

I've been working in a musculoskeletal research lab at the U since the beginning of the semester.  It's almost the same type of work as I've been doing for the last year, segmenting out images.  However, now they are CT scans of human hips, rather than confocal microscope images of cardiac myocytes in rats (I think the myocytes one just sounds cooler - and I think it is cooler too).  It's a good job, and I'm glad to get more research experience, but to be honest, I don't really get that much experience, especially since I already know a lot of the things I could potentially learn, so really I'm just there for the money.

I recently was released from my calling as Ward Mission Leader.  As with almost any calling, this is a really bitter-sweet release.  I enjoyed this calling very much.  It was extremely difficult, and a lot of the time, I didn't feel like I really made any progress or affected anyone's life.  However, looking back I know that I was able to help some people, and hopefully the Lord will magnify what little work we did do for the benefit of His children.

Last, but certainly not least, I've been dating a wonderful girl named Kimberly.  She's so kind and cares a lot about people.  We have a lot of fun together.  I should also mention that she is gorgeous.  Like, super-model gorgeous.  I'm lucky to get to date her.

So really, it's all of those reasons that I haven't blogged a lot lately.

I hope you'll excuse my absence from the online social network.

God's Fireworks

A lot of my posts lately have been of a more spiritual note.  Cool.



So on Sunday, I came home in the evening to see my parents sitting on the front lawn.  I thought "my parents rock".  I thought they were just sitting out there enjoying the grass and the nice weather.  In a sense they were.  But I sat down next to them, and my dad said "Check out the sky".  I looked up and my mouth probably dropped.  The sky was mostly covered with huge bright clouds of varying colors - yellow, pink, white, blue, gray, purple, red.  Some were sinking down and looked like an upside-down cobblestone road with huge stones.  Others looked like an upside-down slow-shutter-speed picture of a waterfall coming over a huge boulder.  Off in the distance were the ginormous cumulo-nimbus that Russell from Up is so knowledgable about. So we sat out there for about 30 minutes just watching the sky change slowly and every second of it was beautiful.  At one point, my mom said "Isn't it wonderful for God to put on a fireworks show for just 3 people?".

Today there's a sweet summer thunderstorm outside.  It reminded me of a video \that my friend posted a little while ago.  Here it is.  Watch it, it's pretty cool.

So... who says God's fireworks are better than man's?

I do.

Faith or Frenzied-ness? :)

So, I sold my road bike.

I did not want to.  As you could probably tell by my posts about road biking in the last 2 weeks as opposed to the long hiatus of non-blogging before that, I fell in love with road biking.  I could tell that if I kept at it (which I wanted to do), I could become very good at it and even compete.  I love the rush of wind as I pedal at a consistent rate.  Basically, I "fit" as a road cyclist.

However, sometimes things don't go the way you want (at least not at first).  Friday night, I was saying my nightly prayers, and the thought came to ask this question "What do I need to do to prepare myself for my future wife?".  I had asked this or at least similar questions before, and usually the answer was to be patient or no answer, which to me means, "It's not time for you to know yet" etc.  But I hadn't asked it since I had bought this bike.  The immediate answer was "Sell the bike."  Not just A bike from our garage, not even just one of the two bikes I own, but THE [road] bike.  My thoughts were "What? I just bought it!  I love riding it! It's good for me!  Isn't it?  Was that just me thinking that for some weird reason?"  Anyway, I kind of struggled with those types of thoughts for a good while in my prayer, and then asked if I was still ok to go on my ride (see last post), and I felt I was, so I did.  Then I said "If it's Thy will, I'll do it."  The next night, (Saturday night), I said in my prayers again "Like I said, if it's Thy will, I'll do it, but I need to be sure I'm not just doing something crazy for no reason", and asked Him to confirm to me that what I was thinking was truly from Him.

Well, Heavenly Father answers prayers (if you didn't know that).  I went to a friend's ward to hear her report on her mission, and the theme of the meeting was "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding.  In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths."  That's in Proverbs 3:5-6.  I was like "Hmmm, if that's not a clear answer, I don't know what is" but somehow I felt that I was going to keep receiving confirmations that day.  Well, I did.  My own sacrament meeting, Bishop Ayre's daughters Kenedi and Amanda and Brother Hansen's daughter Madison spoke about the trials of their pioneer ancestors and how they had to sacrifice some great things to receive even greater things.  Also, Travis Bodtcher and Collette Charles (soon to be Bodtcher) talked about their relationship and how grateful they are for each other.  That wasn't a direct answer to my prayer, but it reminded me of how wonderful married life will be, and that I should be willing to give up anything for her.  Travis talked about how greatly his life changed the moment he decided to turn his life around, and now he's getting married in the temple because of it.  That was interesting to me.  Then in Sunday School we were talking about rehoboam and jeraboam and their poor leadership.  There were a couple of comments that hit me, but most of all when we talked about the grandson of Rehoboam I think it was, I can't remember the name right now, who was righteous and was surrounded by enemy armies.  He was told by a prophet to wait and trust the Lord, and the Lord caused the armies to fight each other and were destroyed.  Elder's Quorum the lesson was on the talk by Elder Martino, called "All Things Work Together for Good".  Basically, the whole day was saying "Yes, you should trust Me and the Holy Ghost.  The answer you received was from Me."

So, it's now gone.  I'm kind of sad, but I trust that the best will come of it.

I'm grateful for my testimony, and Heavenly Father's love.

33 mi

Today I rode 33 miles on my new road bike.

I know that for experienced riders, that's not very far, but considering I've only had the bike for a couple of weeks, for me, this is the longest consecutive ride that I've done on the thing!  Last week, my Brother-in-Law Paul and I rode from my house to the second entry of Snowbird (see map).  We met Chrissie and my parents there for a day of hiking.  Then we just threw the bikes in the car and rode back down with them, so overall it was about 16-1/2 miles of riding.  But today I decided to go up and back.  I woke up today at 7:30 to start out by 8, and got back around 10:45 or 11:00 (I don't remember exactly).  As I got to the second entry, I decided to keep going (mostly because I was following a lady, and she didn't stop there, so I felt like less of a man if I did stop).  But I made it to the 4th entry, where I took about a 10-minute break to rest and enjoy the beauty of that canyon.  Next time I go, I'll go the rest of the way up to Alta.  Then the descent.  If you watch the tour de france or anything, you'll see some cyclists getting up to like 60 mph.  I got up to 42, and let me tell you, even though I'm a little bit of a thrill-seeker and I LOVE anything that feels like I'm going fast, I was a little nervous.  It wasn't bad at first, because the road is newly paved and smooth, but when I got toward the bottom where it's a little more beat up, I slowed down to about 32.  So yeah, those guys that go 60 are crazy.  Anyway, it took me less than 1/2 the time to get home that it did to get up.  I really enjoy cycling, and I think I'll stick with it.  It's going to be hard though when school starts, because to get really good, you really have to devote a LOT of time to it.

So for the rest of the day, we're going to play some ULTIMATE at 4:30 and then go to the REAL SL game tonight and watch fireworks after!  I'm pretty stoked.

Get out there and exercise, it feels so good.

The Priesthood

I've kind of delayed writing this for a while, because it's personal and very important to me, and I wasn't sure what I wanted to share, and if there was anything I shouldn't or didn't want to.

However, for the few people who read my blog, I think, I would feel comfortable telling you about these experiences in person, so why not in my blog?

A couple of weeks ago, our family went down to my favorite place on Earth - Lake Powell.  We've been going twice or three times a year since I was a little kid, and I look forward to every single opportunity we have to go. This year was no different.  I was able to go the whole week, and I couldn't wait for morning ski rides, sun-tanning, hikes, swimming, having fun with my awesome cousins and sisters and parents (I could've just said family), and perfecting the back-flip on my air chair.  We got there on Monday afternoon, so my first opportunity to ski on nice water was Tuesday morning.  Unfortunately, for some strange reason, my Dad decided not to wake me up for the nice water, and just went (even though I've woken him up many times to go skiing)!  I was a little upset.

So later on that day, when the water was choppy because of boat traffic, I decided to break out my air chair, and see if I couldn't land the flip and hold on.  So I rode for a while, just enjoying the flying feeling of gliding above the waves.  Then, I jumped a couple of times, and tried the back-flip, but didn't really jump, so I just fell headfirst into the water, which I've done a lot (see video).

So the next attempt, I jumped, flipped, and in mid-air I thought "Yes!  This is it!  I'm going to make it!".  Something weird happened, and even though I had made it around, I crashed when I hit the water.  Usually, this is no big deal.  This time though, it was.

To me, it felt like my hand had gone into the rope handle, and that the handle had hit my forearm extremely hard and pulled me forward in the water a little bit.  It hurt like the Dickens, and when I came up, I saw that my glove was gone.  After telling the people in the boat to pick up the glove, I noticed that I couldn't move my fingers, they were just stuck in a half-clenched position (as if I were still holding the rope in my hand), and there was a half-golf-ball-size local area of swelling right where it felt like the handle had hit me.  I thought (verbatim) "Crap, I just broke my arm".  So my dad helped me into the ski boat, and we went back to the houseboat to look at it.  It still hurt a ton, and I was thinking I had ruined my family's (as well as my own) favorite summer vacation - which, to me, was more painful than the injury - seriously.  I didn't cry about my arm, I only cried when I was by myself changing, because I was sad to have to leave without getting to ski.

Anyway, I had the thought "I should have my dad give me a blessing", and Christine, one of my 3 amazing sisters, even suggested it to my dad.  Well, we decided to drive out to the channel to see where we could go to get my arm x-rayed, or at least to talk to someone about my arm.  When we got out there, my dad gave me a blessing, and then we called.  As I talked to Brian, the guy at the Bullfrog clinic, my arm hurt less and less, even though I didn't notice that until afterward.  The swelling had gone down almost completely, and I could move my fingers almost as much as before.  There was still some pain when I flexed my hand or wrist, but it wasn't nearly as bad as before.

The next day, Christine and I decided to go on a little hike across the canyon from our houseboat:

So we took the kayaks over there, and parked them at the bottom (1).  We left our life jackets there, and started climbing up the rocky slope.  Every step we took sent small rocks down, so we tried to make sure not to send rocks down on top of each other.  We got to a point where there were huge boulders (2), and we had to rock climb around them to get up higher.  I went one way, and Christine decided to go another way, about 10 ft away from me, (to the right in the photo).  We were just talking, and both of us were thinking how cool we were as siblings to go hiking up this hill with our chacos on and everything, when I suddenly hear Christine yelling.  I turn around to see her falling backwards off of the rocks above a 10-foot drop, and about 60 feet total below her to the water.  I watched in horror as she fell and rolled and fell again down the hill.  All I could do was yell her name trying to show my immense concern and worry and love for her, because I thought she was going to die.  When she finally stopped falling (about 10 feet above the water) (3), she sat there, turned and looked up at me holding her head.  I was worried she had split her head open, and was going to go unconscious soon.  I heard her yell across the water to the houseboat "Dad!  Get in the ski boat and hurry over here!"  That comforted me a little in knowing she could think and yell.  I slowly started moving to the side and then down as they came over in the boat and took her back to the houseboat.  As I walked down carefully, I noticed that one of the kayaks was upside-down in the water about 10 feet from the shore (4).  At the bottom, my dad and I talked a little about what had happened.  He said that he could only see me up at the boulders and the rocks falling down from me.  The huge boulder Christine had been on was falling straight toward the kayaks, and he thought Christine was in or near the kayaks!  One miracle is that the boulder didn't follow the same path as Christine, who went left (black line) and the rocks went right (green line).  Apparently that boulder had hit the one kayak and flipped it over into the water, smashing the one end.  When we got back to the houseboat, I went to change into dry clothes, and again, being alone, cried because of the emotions I had felt as I watched what I thought were my sister's last moments.  Then, my dad and I gave her a blessing as my mom, aunt and sister Chelsey took care of Christine's cuts.  She was in shock and was shaking.  Miraculously, she didn't break any bones, didn't split her head open or anything.  She had some pretty big scrapes, but no deep cuts, and a twisted ankle to top it off.

I was amazed at how quickly she and I healed.  I was able to ski Thursday morning, Thursday afternoon and Friday morning.  Christine, I think, could have as well, but to be safe decided not to, in case of infection from the water getting in her cuts.

(The girl in the picture is my cousin Ashlyn, who got up on skis for the first time this trip!)

I know those are long stories, but I wanted to preserve as much as I could what happened, and add to them my testimony of the Priesthood.  I know that it's a real power, which has been restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith by Angels, and that God and Jesus Christ personally appeared to Joseph Smith to restore this power and the true Church of Jesus Christ.  How grateful I am for a worthy father who is willing and able to give me and my sisters those blessings when they are needed, and for the blessings that come through that Priesthood and the love of God.

Hearts (Again)

The heart is so amazing!  The human heart beats over 2.8 BILLION times over the course of an average lifespan of 75 years*.  This pumping machine pumps about 2,000 gallons of blood every day, and works from it's first beat to it's last.  How cool is that???

I just started a job at the same research lab that I've been volunteering in for almost a year now.  I'm analyzing some structural differences in striation patterns of t-tubules (which serve as boundary lines for sarcomeres) in healthy vs diseased vs diseased then treated hearts.  It's really cool stuff, and I'm excited for the opportunity to learn more and grow in experience.

I'm just grateful that Heavenly Father knew to put such a diligent, persistent organ in us to which we attribute our deepest feelings (i.e. love, devotion, pain, joy, disappointment, and hope), and which provides life to our body and its systems.

*http://www.fi.edu/learn/heart/

Road Bike!

I bought a road bike yesterday.

This is a factory picture, but the real one looks identical to this one.







I'm fairly excited.

Summertime

I just love summertime.

It's made for me.  I think my body's natural habitat is some desert with a nice clear lake nearby.  I love the hot, dry air, and so does my skin.  Basically, Lake Powell is where I belong (or similar places).

Last summer I took classes at the U, trying to accelerate my acceptance into the major (which did help).  However, after going to school constantly for over a year and a half, I decided that this summer I would not take summer classes and try to enjoy it as much as I can.  I've been looking forward to being out of school now for a year, so I can enjoy summer.

Two problems:  1.  It's not really summer-typical weather right now.  It feels more like March in May!  However, that's not the main problem.  2.  I don't have any structure to my life!  I have all these awesome plans of things to do, but then I end up not doing them.  I was worried that I might fall into this pattern.  It's hard because I'm working at nights, so I don't get to hang out with people (who mostly work during the day), and during the day, there's only so much that sounds fun to do by yourself!  I also have an expensive car repair coming up, so I don't want to be spending tons of money on anything.

So, I need to figure out some way to be more productive that will keep me going on a good, healthy schedule.  I think I'll start going up to the research lab almost every day for a few hours.  I don't like feeling lazy.

Spring Break

Last week was Spring Break.

It was SO nice to get away from school!  For the first half of the week, I stayed at home because I had to work each night (still from 9pm to 1am - I don't think I've blogged about my current job yet, maybe I will someday...).  So I realized that if I weren't going to school, my life would be fairly boring!  I slept in almost every day, (one day 'til 11:30!!!)  I never sleep in that late, so I felt pretty lazy.  I went up to the U to work in our research lab a little, and I did some shopping and stuff, but overall, I just played music and enjoyed not having a ton of things to do!  Then... on Thursday... I went... to...

LAKE POWELL!!!


Pictures are from past trips - that's why it looks so warm and calm.  I don't have a camera anymore because it got soaked on this trip

I love that place.  Even though this trip was a little different:  1. I was only there a couple of days, whereas usually I've been able to go the whole week.  2.  It was windy and cold, so I only got in one ski ride (usually I ski at least twice a day).

On the way home, we had a fun experience.  It was me, my bro.in law Paul and my sister Chelsey.  We were just driving along, everything was fine.  I was driving and we were following a truck towing a trailer.  All of a sudden, some black thing comes flying out from under the trailer, flailing around on the road, so I swerved to avoid it, not knowing what it was, and we started fish-tailing, did a 180, and slid off the side of the road sideways, into the near side of a ditch.  We were extremely blessed that we didn't roll or damage my car or get injured.  About 10 different groups of people stopped to help us.  We got towed out and continued on our way.

Two things:  1.  Prayer works.  That morning we said a prayer to get us home safely, and I know that things could have been much much worse for us, but they weren't because Heavenly Father was watching over us.  2.  People are good.  Sometimes it's hard to believe this when you get cut off on the freeway, or people are rude in lines or places.  I was so amazed at how many people were IMMEDIATELY there to help us out.  My faith in the human race was strengthened because of that.

So anyway, it was an eventful, relaxing Spring Break, and I'm so glad that we have it at the U every year.  Now, I can't wait 'til June for our next Powell trip, and for Moab and whatever other things I'm going to do this summer!

The hardest thing about Spring Break though,

is going back to school.