The Hills Have Eyes

This is probably the coolest thing I've done this semester!  In Ephraim there are these mines.  I guess in the early 1900's there was a market for mine for stone(?)  So if you need stone, come on over to Ephraim!  Anyway, in 1921 they closed the mine, but they left something for Snow College students to do: explore it!

We crammed like eight people in the back of Jake's truck (this seems to happen a lot) and headed off.  The mines are in Ephraim, it shouldn't take more than a few minutes, right? Nope.  No one knew exactly which rode to take so we spent an hour trying to find them.  It was already past midnight, and the cold autumn air pretty much killed all eight of us in the truck bed.  But we found 'em finally.

This is the original entrance that caved in a few years ago.

Jameson lectured us about how dangerous the mines are with the following rules:
1. Call someone and tell them we're entering the mines so if we never come back, start worrying
2. No running, the walls could collapse at any time.
3. Whispers only. Noise could cause a cave-in.
4. Count the # of people before you go inside.

I thought he was just being a drama queen and trying to scare us.

This is the entrance.  It's actually a lot smaller than it looks, cuz I mean, I'm a pretty skinny guy and I barely fit in there.

Inside was so cool!  There is no light in there, and I didn't have a flashlight.  But I was using my camera flash to see for a while and I was expecting some monster to show up in my flash at any moment!  Super scary.

That is a sketchy beam.  Jameson's rules #1-3 made sense now. 

The mines went inside mountain pretty deep, and there's a bunch of places to get lost.

After getting out we counted everyone (Jameson's rule #4) and we were good to go.

Then I watched this movie called "The Hills Have Eyes" which is about these people that got exposed to radiation from nuclear bomb testing.  They got really mutated, and they live in mines just like this!  It's a good thing I watched the movie after the experience. 

Back to Snow 2012

It’s practically a tradition that my I get excited for the semester after the first week of school.  Then about a month later I’m sick of my instructors/classes and want it to end.  But right now I’m in the stage that I like school, yay! 
Here are some of my classes.

Bowling: All of the 4 days I’ve been to that class I beat my bowling record.  Recently, I got a turkey (3 strikes in a row) and my record in a game is 149! Now I’m just afraid that I’m only going to get worse.

Business Tech: A computer class that has been very interesting so far (but I’m 99% sure that this is one of those classes that follow ‘the tradition’). 

Masterpieces of American Literature:  Just saying the title makes me sick.  I have to read more books in this class than I’ve ever read in my whole life.  And it doesn’t help that everyone that signs up for this class is way more smart and sophisticated than me.  Discussions are waaay over my head.

English:  I signed up for a night English class, and it was a good idea.  I don’t know what it is about the night, but everyone is just more lively and things are more elicit. 

Weight Lifting:  Basically a class with the football team.  I’ll be bench pressing my maximum, then a dude comes over and picks up my max with his one hand.  Intimidating? Yeah. 

So yeah, I don't think it'll be too bad of a semester!

p.s. sorry to have a blog post without any pictures

Alaska 2012

Well, I made it back from Alaska 2012!  It was another year of having a lot of time off and not making as much money as hoped.  Here are some of most memorable experiences of the summer:

We ate a lot of pizza.  Whenever we’d go to the mess hall and something gross was for dinner, we’d say “it’s a pizza day!“  We’d call No Name Pizza, the cheaper of the 2 pizza places in Valdez.  No Name Pizza became very familiar with the Peter Pan employees and they hated us.  One night we ordered some cheese sticks, and we’re all very convinced that No Name put something in there.  Everyone that ate the cheese sticks had issues that night and the next day haha.

The funniest thing to me was seeing people from different worlds clashing.  We had people that had been sheltered their whole life working with kids with fake ID’s, swearing every-other word, and partying every day we had off.

the crew

This probably seems dumb, but it’s one of the coolest things that ever happened at work.  The power completely went out in the factory, and it was really exciting!  The power was out for about 45 minutes and we all got paid to hang out for a while.  Doing repetitive jobs a long time makes you appreciate the little things I guess.

I’d say this was the craziest things I did all summer I think.  We jumped off the 25 ft ferry docks into the Alaska ocean! Yes it was really cold, but how many people can say they’ve done that?  I’m glad I can say I’ve done it.

I brought a mini-cruiser board to Alaska this year, and it was the smartest thing I’ve ever done.  Boarding was how I got away from everyone and just had some quality time to cruise around and think.  One time I was riding at midnight (it’s still bright outside at that time) and I came across a group of at least 15 bunnies just chilling on a trail.  As I rode passed them, they all scattered and it was totally awesome.  That might’ve been one of those things that you appreciate only because you’re stuck in a small town for so long haha.



And of course, we had some fun with the company's leftover industrial saran wrap :)




















Though I did have a lot of fun in Alaska of summer 2011 and 2012, I’d say it’s a good 95% chance I’m not going back again.  I’m grateful for the life-long friends I’ve made and everything I’ve learned.  But I’m also really glad I’m back in good ol’ Utah now.

Signs

There are bunches of signs on every corner here at Peter Pan Seafoods in Valdez, AK.  One of my favorite past-times is reading them because they are so ridiculous.

Here are some of my favorites:

No thanks, I would rather stand.

Same sign, different twist.

No thanks, I'm not hungry.

I like to imagine these are the lyrics to a rap or something. It flows.

This sign is here for a reason...but no one seems to obey it.  Crazy Phillipinos!

Seriously every time I go into the bathroom, someone has already hung up toilet paper on the stalls so people won't spy on them through the little crack in the stall.  

Guest visits SHOULD be approved, but they don't necessarily HAVE to. 

It's in quotes? Who said it????

I hate it when my internet "gows away".

It was a major shock to everyone when the internet all of a sudden didn't work anymore.

Sign reading: the best past-time in Valdez AK.

The Next Day

As seen in this blog post I said I write and record a new song every year.  Here is the 2012 song.  

I had the general idea for the song months ago, but I finally wrote it the day before going to the recording studio.  I'm satisfied with how it turned out considering I was the first person to ever record at "Catalyst Studios".  And I got a really good deal. (if anyone wants to record, I can hook you up.  Referrals baby!)

AK in the AK

Those are my initials, yo!
The second I arrived in Alaska, I had all these flashbacks of last summer.  It got me super excited for this summer.  I’ve been here for a little over a week and this is my experience so far.

Before I came here, I promised myself that I would not be lazy.  I wanted to run a few miles every day and limit the TV watching. So far I haven’t done either of those.  Actually I’ve done quite the opposite!  Last year, we walked to town (about 1 mile one way) almost every day.  This year, we’ve borrowed our Phillipinos brotha’s car to go to town all the time.  And I haven’t run at all because I’m always too tired after work haha.

I guess it runs in the family that we fail, and think it’s really funny.  My mom loves to tell the story of when she was playing kickball with her students and she tripped multiple times.  Well so far in Alaska, I’ve had a few fail moments here and it is the funniest thing to me.

#1 fail. Bikes around this place are free for the riding as long as they are not locked up.  Unfortunately the bikes without locks are really crappy.   So my second day here, we were going to town on some bikes.  I was pretty unlucky in my choosing of bikes because about 20 yards down the road the front wheel totally locked up.  I did a front flip over the bars.  It didn’t hurt and I was totally fine, but the worst part is that there were a ton of Phillipinos staring (they always stare).  I was very embarrassed and of course someone has to make a joke about it every single day.

#2 fail.  We were all killing some time by playing hacky-sack.  Long story short I went to kick it and landed straight on my back. So funny.

So far I've been ok in the AK (<---- rip off of someone else's old blog title)

The Weeks of Summer

My events of summer come sporadically throughout the weeks.

Week 1: Work without pay

Consisted of me helping my dad around the house.  Pouring cement, digging crap, planting crap, etc. (not literal "crap" in case you were wondering)

Week 2: XBL

I used to be in love with playing Xbox online.  But I hadn't played it in a year because my apartment at school has way too slow of internet.  So this week was FULL of playing Call of Duty online.  32 hours to be exact O.o ...but I beat the game and I think I can wait until next year to play it again.  I'm smart enough to not let a game run my life.

Week 3: Doctors

Appointment after appointment, holy heck!  Eye doctor, dentist, physicals, and drug test.  But now I have glasses so I can see, I have no more cavities in my teeth, and I proved to be healthy enough and drug free enough to go to Alaska in a few weeks :D

Week 4: Hobby time!

I've gotten into long-boarding recently so Mr. Erik and I have been hittin' up a whole bunch of trails.  I did get in a minor accident haha.  It could have been a lot worse, I'm just all scratched up. 

Procrastination?

No.

In the beginning of the year we got assigned this "big project."  Even though this semester project is due in 5 days and I barely thought about it for the first time today, I am not a procrastinator.  Think of it this way: I know for a fact that everyone else in the class is going to do the project 1-2 days before its due.  Now if you put the class on a bell curve of when they start the project, I'm on the far right of the curve.

This probably doesn't make any sense...but in my defense it is 4 am and I just finished the project.  In your face procrastinators!

Annual Song Scrawl

I decided I'm starting a tradition. I've been doing this for 2 years already so I think it's a good idea to keep it going. I'm going to write and record one song a year.

(click on the links to listen)

2010
Hamberna


2011
Walking On



This is something I love doing. I'd love to do it more but it's not cheap professionally recording songs and I'm not clever enough to write tons of songs haha. But I am writing my 2012 song right now and I'm super excited about it! I figure in like 10 years I'll have this sweet album that shows how things change and it'll be The Story Of My Life (or something gay like that)

Failure By Design

Snow College does this thing where the more earned credits you have, the earlier you can register for next semester classes.  I am 1 credit short of registering for classes yesterday.  But instead I have to wait for another 4 days.


So there are these Snow College teachers that are just awful (and that's being nice).  I need to take Calculus next semester and this one professor dude is miles better than the other three.  Each Calc class has 20 seats, here is where the open seats are right now (professor names have been changed for confidentiality)


Harold: 20 open seats
Kumar: 20 open seats
Jack Black: 5 open seats


You see, I would really like to take Calc from Jack Black.  But apparently everyone else at Snow College does too.  Right now I'm taking Trig from Kumar and let's just say that people aren't signing up for his class for a reason. 


The next class I would really like to take is Human Biology.  This professor dude is well-known for being an easy A, while still being 4 science credits needed to graduate.  His class started with 100 open seats and it's down to 20.  


I will be very happy with my schedule next year if I can get in these two classes!  But for now all I can do is check the open seats hourly (haha) and hope that it doesn't fill up in the next 4 days!  Other classes I'm probably going to take are boring ol' English, weight training, and convocations

Hold Your Colour

A lot has happened since I last blogged!  I'll start out by announcing something major.  I decided to grow a mustache for the last week of March.  Most people believe in mustache March, but I'm sticking to the last week.  This experience has taught me 1 thing: There sure as heck isn't going to be a mustache May!!!  I've had numerous comments (some anonymous messages)  about how gross it is.  I've got a few more days of growing, then I'll post a pic so everyone can enjoy it with me.

Last weekend was the Holli Festival of Colors.  I kidnapped 2 of my roommates and one of my work-buddies and we stayed at my house so we could attend.  The color-fest was so fun!

This picture was taken before all the colors mix together and becomes a brown cloud of nastyness.  We were all somewhere in that crowd struggling to breathe and to not die in general.

 Here is one of us after all the madness.  Unfortunately we're all just brown and dirty!  

Though it was tons of fun, the best part was probably showering! :)

The rest of the weekend consisted of ping-pong, movies and the HUT!  Basically all my Payson friends which I never see anymore got together and we went up Payson Canyon where there is a secret hut made of sticks. We made a fire, told stories, and caught up.  This was the first time we all got together since high school, and may be the last time for a very very long time!  A bunch of my friends are going on missions or moving away.

Alaska again?

Ask me what my favorite summer ever was, and [depending on my mood] I might tell you it was my summer in Alaska.


Sure I spent all summer doing the most monotonous jobs you could imagine including, but not limited to:

• Moving cans across a table for 5 hours at a time
• Pushing 1000 pound carts from one room to another
• Putting cardboard layers between cans

BUT during our down-time, I had some much fun in the AK!  




I'm wary of going back for a few reasons: 
1. I fear the people aren't going to be as awesome as they were last year. 
2. The incident that made the supervisor hate me  (not to be blogged about). 
3. Considering the amount of $$$ directly corresponds with the number of fish, I'm hoping there is a lot of fish this year.
4. I'll miss 311 playing in SLC for the second year in a row :(

I sent my application the other day, so I guess the pros outweigh the cons.  Hopefully the incident doesn't affect my chances of getting hired...honestly, you do a BILLION things right it should cancel out the ONE thing you did wrong right? I learned my lesson!  Haha, I'm probably just overreacting.

(sorry for those who don't know what the incident is, I'm sure you are just DYING of curiosity)

My Insight of the Day

Have you ever been hated for something you're good at?  I was told that I was disliked, even hated, for getting good grades with little effort.  It made me think a little bit.  You wouldn't hate someone for being a good guitar player, right?  Just because they are playing music with little effort doesn't mean it was always that way. They had to work hard at some point to be able to do what they are doing.

In part II of the conversation with this person, they asked my opinion of certain things - these things which I don't have an opinion on.  They questioned what goes on in my mind, and with such an empty brain why I get good grades.

Here's what I came up with:

I think about what I have to!  When I'm in Chemistry class, I think about chemistry.  When I'm at work, I think about work.  When I'm not doing anything, I like thinking about nothing...just general man things (food, girls).   Plus brains aren't the only aspect of good grades.  The way I see it, if you do the work, pay attention, and use time wisely, you'll get decent grades.

It is true that there are very few things that I have a strong opinion on.  I like to just go with it.  I hate arguing.  Life is easier that way.  I can have an opinion if I have to, but there are too many things in this life that do not matter, so why have an opinion on it?! Ha ha.

All The Small Things

I know, it's SO original having a song title as a blog post title... but nothing super exciting has happened in the last few weeks. I feel like blogging though so here they are!

#1. Goags
So my roommates and I did this thing where we sing a song only we replace various words with the word "goags."  Take the song "Beverly Hills" for example.  We would sing "Beverly Goags, that's where I want to be!"  Now imagine every song you've ever heard and replace various words with "goags." ...what started out to be something funny, got really ridiculous around here.  So now that g word is banned.  Saying it will get you a slap to the face.  What is Goags?

 

 His name is Logan, but everyone calls him Goags (and ladies, he is available!)  His name is no longer Goags, it's Russel.  But the new problem is we started saying "Russ" in all of our songs now. Uh oh.

#2. Twitterpation
Yep I'm guilty.  It happened, I denied it, but it's still happening.  I can't help it.  The result of twitterpation is doing things you never thought you would.  I thought this was supposed to end in elementary school.  Ugh.

#3. Money
Before last week, I hadn't received a paycheck in 5 months.  I had forgotten how good money feels!  Also I did my taxes and I have more money coming home to me soon.  I'm hoping to take a Vegas vacation on 3/11 to see 311 to celebrate having a job haha.


I guess that's all that's worth mentioning (even though all of this was NOT worth mentioning in the first place) I'll keep you updated if anything cool ever happens round here!

I Love Free Stuff

There is this website deals.woot.com.  I've gotten so much free stuff from here it is crazy.  Most of the time they only have good/great deals, but if you check at the right time they have links to free samples/promotions.  Over the last month, I've gotten the following for FREE!

Adult diapers. I've got no use for these (honestly) but IT WAS FREE!  Might as well, right?  Maybe I'll get a good prank out of them.

Breathe-Right strips.  I saw the same pack at Wal-Mart for $0.99, but I got em' shipped to me for free.  I actually HOPE I get a cold soon so I can use them.

Lotion-ed Kleenex. I grew up always having to blow my nose with toilet paper.  These were like heaven.

Granola Bars.  Approximately at $0.75 value: awesome.

and my personal favorite...

Red Bull.   I was dubious about this one because it sounded too good to be true.  A 4-pack of energy drinks was delivered to my box today.  "What is this, a block of led?" said the guy from the mail center.


So free stuff rocks my socks.  I've gotten about $10 worth of free stuff in trade for a whole bunch of promotional emails probably.  And it's awesome because most of this stuff takes 2 months to get delivered.  So by the time you get it, you've forgotten that you ordered it which means a huge surprise!

Cleaning out the fridge

Today Erik made some popcorn chicken.  He decided it would go well with his bbq sauce.  He couldn't find it in our fridge because of this:

our fridge is a MESS!

So Erik was digging around in the back, and he found some milk.  This particular milk was super bloated and it happened to expire 3 months ago!!!  Jameson wanted to see it explode, so we went outside and he threw it in the road! It made a pretty good explosion, though you can't really tell in the video. I wanted to be the good guy and not litter, so I picked up to take it to the dumpster.  Grossest thing ever! I held my breath after I got a huge wiff of neurotoxic milk fumes.

We then cleaned out all of the expired food in our fridge (actually Erik cleaned it all out while Jameson and I wathced).  There was a TON of expired, moldy, and unknown substances.

...oh, and Erik found his BBQ sauce!!!

Bring in the Semester

Yay for new classes! After 2 days of classes, I can tell how this semester is gonna be. Here's my surmise for the next few months.


Looking forward to:  
American Civilizations! I've never been into history that much, but the way my professor has introduced us into the course has got me all excited. 
Chemistry! Today, there was an explosion in class. Nobody saw it coming. It's only a 1010 class so It's not gonna get too technical, so the class and lab should be fun.
Film.  Getting college credit to watch, analyze, and critique movies. 


Dreading:
Sociology. I LOVED AP psychology in high school.  Sociology sounds like a dumbed down version of psych.  The professor does seem like a cool guy though, hopefully I'll learn something new.

Trigonometry.  It turns out that the only people that take trig are engineering majors (guys).  3 girls in a class of 30 people. Odd for a college with 3x more girls than guys...other than that, it's a typical math class (bleh)

I'm a very busy man now-a-days! Not much free time at all, but if I survive it'll only make me stronger. Ugh, is that cheesy?

Wild Card Weekend

My first day on the job starts Monday, which makes me so happy!  I was really afraid I was going to have to work this weekend, which just so happens to be the first week of NFL playoffs.  My Houston Texans are playing the Bengals - loser is eliminated.

I've been wondering what the psychology is behind sports fans.  Why do I get so excited over watching a game on TV?  I came to the conclusion that sports fans feel like they are on the journey with the team.  If the team wins, then they win.  I totally agree!  When I watch the Texans, I feel a rush and it makes me super happy to see them win.  Also, while reading forums from people talking about sports, they address their favorite team as "we" rather than "they," as if they are IN the team.

Why do I like the Houston Texans?  I remember when I was in elementary school I liked the Houston Rockets basketball team because of a giant Chinese guy, Yao Ming.  Then when my roommates got me into football this year, I decided that I was going to like the Texans purely because they're from the same city as the Rockets.  Now I'm a huge fan of them!  It's really weird the way that works but honestly, being into football makes life more fun.
So good luck to the Texans this weekend!  Maybe if we're lucky, we'll make it to the Super Bowl.

Training

I watched 3 hours of safety/training videos at McDonald's the other day.  I learned sooo much! Things like "wash your hands after you go to the bathroom," and "don't serve meat raw."  It felt like a video for 1st graders, but I can't really blame McDonald's.  It must be in the video for a reason - someone has made the  mistake before.

I learned the til/cash register.  It is incredibly simple.  I could see myself having it down within a few hours of messing with it.  At Taco Time, it literally takes months to figure out everything with the til.  I really think I will enjoy this job!  Everything is really fast paced which makes time go really fast.  And the people seem really fun too (which is the main reason I loved Taco Time)

2012 - new year, new job

Yeahh I decided it's a new year and I'm going to try something new-by blogging!  Don't know if I'll ever update but I'm trying it out.

Basically my whole financial life is being held up with the money I made over the last 3 years at Taco Time.  Unfortunately it's not lasting nearly as long as I'd hoped.  It's been so depressing seeing my bank account dwindle.  But with this new semester rolling in, I've got plenty more time than I did last semester.  I applied at McDonald's.  When I was a young boy I made a life-long goal never to work there. But being older and wiser now, I've come to realize that it's necessary.  It's one of the 3-4 possible jobs in Ephraim.

Over Christmas break, I got a call from them wanting to interview me.  I came back to Ephraim a week before school started and there is no one here! It's really quite depressing.  But my interview went well and I got hired!  I've still got a whole week in this town all by myself, but at least I start training tomorrow so I don't die of loneliness.

So I'm hoping I'll love Micky D's as much as I loved Taco Time!