24 years strong

So I have some pretty cool roommates/friends up here in provo. Monday Dec 8 was the 24th anniversary of my birth and of those 24 years this was the first surprise party that I have had, and I was pretty surprised.

The day started off pretty good, waking up at 11, and then heade

d off to see about getting a key to the sh

ooting range. When I left the apartment it was snowing, actually it was a little more like sleet then snow. After I found the provo parks and recreation office and got the key headed home to get all packed and ready for shooting. My buddy James from back home shows up, and we show off our guns. He had a glock 19, which he carried concealed, a .40 beretta, and this crazy short barrel, pistol grip shotgun with a folding stock and light.

We get up to the range and the gate is already open so we just drive on in. There were some others at the rifle range which didn't bother us cuz we were going to the pistol range. The target stands at the pistol range were like 50 yards from the firing line, 

which is way too far away for us, good thing we were the only ones at the pistol range. After getting our targets put up and the guns loaded we start to realize how cold it is at squaw peak. We get closer to the targets, prob about 25 yds back and emptied a couple of clips into our targets. We shot slow, fast, one hand, left hand. Now 

the left hand I don't know if I'll try that again, after almost having the gun hop out of the hands, the gun is definitely a two handed gun, well if you wanna hit anything your pointing it at accurately.

We go back to the firing line and load the clips back up, which by this time is way hard since the hands don't seem to work when they are cold. So we hop in the car defrost for a lil bit, and then continue shooting. After a lil bit, my buddy pulls out the shotgun and we shoot a couple bird loads which have some kick but is fun. Then he pulls out these 00 buckshot loads to shoot. The sucker kicked pretty hard and you could see where you hit the mountain from 50 yds away. It gets better, then he pulls out some magnum 00 buc

kshot. Those suckers kicked so hard it feels like the shotgun was going to be ripped from your hands, and they kinda hurt to shoot. By this time we were plenty cold and ready to head home.

When I arrived at the apartment I started getting ready for our FHE activity. We needed a white elephant gift which is pretty hard to find at the last second. I grabbed a tin of bath and body works cinnamon mints as my gift and Jake and

 skye got theirs. At the activity I totally got a prada purse that I will be giving my mom for christmas. After FHE Jake wanted to go to the gym but we had to make it a quick one since we where going to go to dinner and skye didn't want to stay out late. So we get to the gym, (monday we work chest and back) have a good quick workout followed by some laps in the pool. The swimming is something we recently started and now since we have no job, it makes it a lot easier to do. It has definitely started to pay off. Jake and I have started to notice that the little stomach padding getting thinner and thinner. So although when we swim we feel like we are going to drown, it will probably be something that we will continue to do for awhile.

At 9:45 I get out and am rushing so we 

won't be late for skye. I shower off

 and go out on the pool deck to gather my belongings and Jake is still on deck, texting away. At this point I was starting to get a bit irritated because I didn't want to be late. I quickly changed and to show Jake he needed to hurry up I went out to the car and started it, waiting for him. Then skye calls, he needs me to grab paper because we are all out. I was not happy that I was being asked to grab some pap

er for my printer which I would have paper for if I didn't let others use it. At this point we now have a valid excuse if we were to be late since we needed to pick up some paper. As jake hops in the car Suzette calls and wants me to grab her a coke, now this is fine since we already have to go to the store to grab some paper. 

When we get to the store Jake gets out, I kinda drop him off and pull the car around to wait for him. I was relieved that Jake was going to pay for the coke and the paper, so I felt a lil better. Finally, after what seemed like 30 min Jake shows up and hops in the car and I speed away like a getaway driver, still determined to be on time. The drive home we hit every red light possible which just added to my steam. Then we get home a

nd I only have my car key and jake only has his phone and the door is locked. Often times when we come home the door is locked, even if someone is home, which added a lil more steam as I pounded and rang the doorbell. The door is unlocked and I rush in and am surprised to see a ton of ppl in the apartment, who all yell surprise and kinda freak me out, and start singing happy birthday. It was nice. There was cake and more girls then there were guys. What more could anyone want on their birthday? With all the p

ent up steam now gone the party was a lot of fun. 

And to all those who came, I just wanna say thanks. I had no idea of a surprise party and thank you for coming, and thanks to the two who made it all happen, Jake and Skye.

Finally giving thanks for the giving

Finally got this all put together. So I was able to make it home for thanksgiving, and ride with my grandparents down. Sleeping gets real boring quick when your not tired so it seemed like a really long drive. I have an uncle in St. George so we spent the night since it was getting late. We woke up early the next morning and headed to Rancho. Oh before we left spanish fork we ate at burger king, I don't think I have ever eaten there, but I ordered some hamburger with 4 patties and bacon, it was good. 

Anyway we make it to rancho and it is all overcast and cold, so much for warm sunny So Cal. Thursday rolls around, which is thanksgiving, and we were planning on eating outside. I went outside and looked around and it seemed that no had done anything to keep it nice. The hedges overgrown, rose bushes in need of pruning and fern garden growing out of control. So I hedged back most everything cleaned up and trimmed back (forgot about the rose bushes) and then it starting raining and pouring so we ended up eating inside for thanksgiving anyway.

I guess that after we eat thanksgiving it has become a family tradition to go to the movies. Now typically I prefer to sleep after eating, actually it's more like going into a coma as it is so hard to get me up. Anyway someone then had the grand idea of going to Twilight. I of course was not down and so me and some cousins went to watch Transporter 3. Jason Statham is prob one of my favorite actors. The movie had plenty of the stuff that guy movies are full of. (cars, girls, violence, and of course amazing driving that no one in real life would be able to pull off) After watching movie I decided that maybe a mail order bride from Russia wouldn't be so bad. (the girl in the movie was Ukrainian) 

As I walk in the door and grab something to eat on of my cousins tells me this story of how he jumped his car while off roading and got a flat and needed someone to go with him to change the tire and get the car, which ended up translating into me changing the tire while they watched. We took my uncles titian out and my cousin drove. Wow did I think we were gonna die, going 120 in a big truck we probably would have killed what ever we hit too. We get there and I change the tire as my brother and cuz watch. Once everything is all done we take off, this time I am in the titian and he is driving his car. 

I don't know if any of you have ever driven a titian before, they have tons of power. I was chirping the tires like it was nothing and if I would have gunned it, easily could break the back end loose. It was fun.

Friday rolls around which means time to go shooting. I haven't been in such a long time, plus with my new gun, I was pretty stoked. So we get there and the weather is amazing. Nice and sunny warm, too bad it was a day late for thanksgiving.  After some clay pigeon shooting and flying through 100 rounds with my gun we call it a day. After we get home and I show everyone how to clean all of the guns. After we are are all finished, my brother had set up this date thing with me him and one of my other cousins. We go miniature golfing and of course we are leading everyone, by a long shot too. Then about halfway through the game we take off and go watch four christmases. It have Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon, (which, by the way still looks good for however old she is and how many kids she's had). The movie was quite entertaining, I guess certain parts (one comes to mind) are pretty vulgar (way old lady talking about stuff she needs to do to her husband) so I would recommend not watching with the parents, it may get pretty awkward.

After the movie I grabbed some in-n-out. A 4x4 animal style (cuz thats how I like it), lite fry, and a choc shake totaling just over 8 bucks. We head over to one of my buddies house and just chill. We hear his dog outside, and it sounds like its either attacking someone or getting attacked, so we run outside and see this massive possum being attacked by his lil dog. All of a sudden the dog starts whelping so my buddy kicks the possum against the wall and takes his dog inside. The possum is freaking pissed and hissing with it's mouth open with all these sharp teeth. It was pretty intimidating for such a small thing. Soon after we head home. 

The next day at 8am everyone was downstairs for a birthday breakfast with pancakes and gifts. I got a pretty sweet rice maker/steamer (thanks mom), a gift card to Costco (thanks dad?), some push up things(thanks siblings?), and money from the grandparents (always a good thing, thanks). After the party and still half asleep it was time for us to go back to Utah, I jump in the car with my grandparents and one of my cousins this time, but we pretty much slept the whole way to St. George, dropped my cousin off, grabbed in-n-out for the last time (I got my usual) and then drove the rest of the way. Once back at the Omni, it was strange to feel glad to be back, It was good though to see I wasn't gonna be the only one home, thanks Skye.

Too bad

The title is prob a lot more entertaining then my story. Anyway I finished my test last night and went to bed, after catching up on my simpsons. I awoke to my phone, which never happens, I am usually impossible to get up. Its an 801 number so I figure it's prob important, so I answer it and it's the provo police dept. Now my brain is trying to compute everything and make sense of what is going on, think of it like running the hurdles but instead tripping on every single hurdle, yeah it hurts. I am trying to figure out if I had done anything stupid recently or any tickets I forgot about, when she tells me that my car has been broken into and if I could come down to my car.

Now my brain is trying to freak out but I am so incoherent that nothing sinks in. I start thinking about my collapsable steel police baton and my brass knuckles which I have in my car, the whole time wondering if they found them and how much trouble am I going to be, while at the same time not exactly sure what is going on, it all just seemed to be a dream. I was almost thinking; yeah right this is not happening as I walk down to my car. I get into the parking structure and I don't see anyone. I think to myself what is going on and start to turn around to leave, until I see the police car, parked in the dark corner.

She comes over and explains everything to me as we walk to my car, everything looks fine, oh wait there is no passenger window. Of course my iPod is gone, thats the one thing she said was common with the other 4 cars that had been broken into. My iPod is freakin old, the old 30 gb from like 3 years ago. They left my Maui Jim sunglasses which where sitting right next to my iPod and left my 400 dollar radar detector attached to my window. She gives me some case number and that other fun stuff, that now I have no idea where I had put it all, and I go grab my vacuum to clean up the glass. 

Prob the worst part, not only did your car window and iPod get jacked, you now have to clean up the millions of tiny lil glass shards that the safety windows break into. I couldn't believe how much glass one lil window had, glass was everywhere, in piles. I thought the vacuum was gonna die from sucking up all the glass. After it's cleaned up I realize that it is now completely pointless to even lock my car, I need to get this fixed asap. I call up my good ol insurance, they tell me I have a 750 dollar deductible on my car and my renters insurance will cover any theft, but it has a 500 dollar deductible, so no money for me. Window $130, iPod $200, knowing I should have gotten an alarm system for my car, priceless. For all of the above there's Visa.

So I head over to the window guy, they tell me they can get a window by 3. I have class at 4, so that doesn't work. Tomorrow, yeah class from 130-930, doesn't work. Friday, nothing, works. In the mean time I have this plastic sheet thing to keep out the wind, water, and bad guys. Too bad that it rattles worst then a ran over rattlesnake (I really don't know what that would sound like, but if I were a ran over rattlesnake i'd be rattling pretty furiously). Too bad my radio sucks so I am blasting talk radio, just so I can hear it. Too bad I live in Provo.

Wasting time

So I finally cleaned my car up from all the window paint, it took a lil while but I got it. The red paint is very red and my hands had a tinge of pink to the them. The rag that I used was completely red, and so I threw it into the washer, thinking; hey I'll just wash this when I bleach out the washer (the washer has some funky smell, so needs to be cleaned out).  Often times, like this one, I got so busy and caught up in everything that I had totally forgot what I had planned on doing, so the rag just sat in the bottom of the washer. 

Yeah you prob know where this is going. Skye needed to use the washer, to wash his whites along with his temple clothes. Now red and white don't mix all that well. After the load was run he quickly realized what I had done and washed the load a couple more times. This helped remove the pink that had been added to his clothes. (oops) I believe that they are almost normal, plus when I do finally get that bleach, I'll be sure to let Skye use some of that.

So Thanksgiving is coming up, and since I no longer have a job, am able to go home. Sad thing is, a part of me really doesn't want to go home. It really can be a hassle, plus there is always a list of things for me to fix or do. I think the main thing is when your away from your family, if they start bugging you, you can just hang up the phone. Also the idea of being stranded. When your hitching rides you don't have a car to drive when you get home, then again with gas up at 2.30 a gal who would really want to drive anyway.(I filled up today for 1.76)

I no longer care about the rest of this semester of school. None of the classes that I am taking look like they are going to help me with my major. It is really hard to get me motived to go to school now, I mean I only have school 3 days a week, but still, I don't usually get home till like 1030 on most nights and that sucks. My schedule for next semester is way different thats for sure, but I'll prob end up going through some sort of crisis. I can't see many positive outcomes when your taking bio with a lab, chem with a lab, and stats which I had already taken but for some reason doesn't transfer over. I guess an upside to my day would be going up to Taylorsville, to the criminal investigation division, and turning in my concealed carry permit (which should arrive in the next 30 days). It's such a relief to get something done off the to do list.

I having, just looked down at my hand, realized I forgot to take a test on blackboard tonight. I shall take it now, I always forget these tests.

What

So today (friday) I went to bed around 6:30 am. I guess I just wasn't tired after sleeping for like 4 days while being sick during the past week. I am not tired. it makes it hard to go to bed, makes it even harder getting up in the morning. So friday I had an appt to meet with a councilor at UVU so I could register for the important classes that I need to at 1. I woke up at 1:10, screwed I run out the door and get to school, find where I am supposed to be and its 1:30. Impressive right? 

Well she was gone and by the scheduling posted to her door I could see that she had no other students to see. Feeling screwed I just stand outside the door looking around at different things and then a lady comes over and opens the door, it's the councilor. Instant relief, she helps me make my schedule, which totally sucks hardcore,(bio 1 with lab, chem 1 with lab, and stats). With that done and me feeling like an idiot after how easy she just made everything look, I went home to eat some good ol breakfast and watch some tv shows while I am at it.

Jake comes home from something and so then we go shopping. We had been talking for awhile about getting into swim, we have passes to 24 and figured we would start going sat mornings, so we'll see how that works soon. After we got back was pretty bored for awhile, Jake and everyone went to the new Bond movie, I on the other hand stayed home to try to save money, those lil things add up fast when you have no job. 

Anyways they get back from the movie and Jake mentions to me that someone had written some leviticus on my car and he read me the scripture. I knowing what else is in Leviticus instantly though it had something to do with my prop 8 sticker. I was enraged and instantly headed down to see what "vandalism" had befallen my car. As I approached my car I noticed lots of writing, then as I got closer I realized that I totally was way off of what I thought it was. As my anger turned to a smile I headed back up to my apt. When I go out tomorrow, I know seeing that will start me off in a good mood, and get me thinking again.

"All the constitution guarantees is the pursuit of happiness. You have to catch up with it by yourself." - Benjamin Franklin

Democracy

Has anyone seen what has been going on after the Election? I am not talking about the whole "Yes we can" Hitler chanting, what I am talking about is the whole "Prop 8 passed and we need to overturn it" sorta thing. It seems there are too many fine lines here, say one thing it's hate speech, do another and your a Bigot. Marriage is a religious institution ordained by God. Why do they even want to get married if they are not religious? Attacks on the church, white powder filled envelopes sent to the SLC and LA Temples already, it seems to me what we have here is a group of terrorists. Trying to strike fear into people who are doing the right thing. Posting their Blogs with peoples names and address who have donated money to pass prop 8, with the words, you know what to do. Who do these people think they are? These "No on prop 8" people lost and just like a child is kicking and pounding on the ground to get as much attention as they can, but to no avail. I know people have rights, and I have those same rights, but why when you can call me names and threaten me or my beliefs, when I try to do the same to you, is it called hate speech? Shouldn't it all be considered hate speech? Don't we have freedom of Religion?

President Bush tonight promoted religious freedom in his speech at a UN gathering.

"Freedom is God's gift to every man, woman and child--and that freedom includes the right of all people to worship as they see fit....we're not afraid to stand with religious dissidents and believers who practice their faith even where it is unwelcome." - President George W. Bush 11/13/2008

"The Price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." - Plato

What better way to start

Well after doing some thinking, I have decided that I needed a better way then facebook to keep my ideas and thoughts all organized. Blogs seem to be pretty organized, so to start off, a little info to keep some updated and to inform others who may not already know.

8 Things I am passionate about

1. Rights and freedoms

2. The Church

3. Gas Prices

4. Health

5. Movies

6. Apple inc. (Although since they went gay I haven't been too happy.)

7. The beach

8. Good deals

8 Words or Phrases I say often

1. Right

2. What the Gay

3. You freakin guy (in an Arabian voice)

4. What

5. Are you effing kidding me?!

6. And many others I am sure,

8 Things I want to accomplish in the coming year

1. Get a nice pt job

2. Get instate so I can go to UVU

3. Go on more dates

4. Get a Motorcycle

5. Get ripped

6. Donate my hair to locks of love

7. Don't get any tickets

8. Save more money (actually saving some would be a good start.)

8 Places I would Love to go or visit.

1. Rome

2. Ensenada

3. Hawaii (always a good choice)

4. New Zealand

5. Bali

6. Florida and surrounding isles (cruise ship, this new year)

7. Niagara falls

8. The Holy Lands

8 Things I want or need badly

1. An iPhone (or just a new phone)

2. New pair of shoes

3. New snowboard

4. New speakers for my car

5. A new deck for my car

6. A job (but seriously though)

7. A new sweater (it is that time of year again)

8. A springfield XD .40 Compact

There's a lil, there will prob be more later I am sure