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Catching Up

Well, I have a couple activities to catch up on writing about, but one that I want to mention especially was a great evening a couple weeks ago. In fact, the date was August 11th. The good thing about this evening was that I had dinner with some friends that I hadn't seen in a long time. And I have some pictures to prove it. See:

We ate family style at the Sampan restaurant adjacent to Southtowne Mall. At first, I was hesitant to join in the family style meal. This dates back to an experience I had with the same group of friends at Christmas time a couple years ago. We went to this restaurant styling itself as an immigrant Italian dining experience called Buca di Beppo. They serve meals family style there, and even let some lucky people eat in the kitchen and watch the cooking going on. Well, it was the most expensive meal I ever left feeling hungry. Family style didn't seem to be all it was cracked up to be. On this particular evening, I was pretty hungry. It was already late at night, and I had just come straight from a full day of school (my boring workshop on Africa), so I didn't want to be gypped out of a good meal.

Anyway, we did end up going family style, but it turned out fine. I was pretty full. Conversation topics of the evening: Republicans and getting an absentee ballot from a different state. Angle of Repose. Grad school. Europe. Houses. The Polar Express, and I'm sure there was much more. I had the sweet and sour pork. Cybill brought a "friend" and held hands under the table the whole time. And Evie was a treat.


All in all, it was a successful dinner and really good to see old friends. It's funny how you can still stay connected even after months of not talking. One last picture of friends:

After dinner, I went to watch The Child Who Was A Keyhole play at Kilby.


They opened for the Minders. Lots of other friends from a different part of my life were there. It's funny how there are different facets to myself, like eating dinner with married friends and then going to concerts (also with married friends), and I feel perfectly at ease with both. I remember the first concert I went to after coming home from my mission. It was such a contrast to life as a missionary, but I loved it. There's something about the electric pulse of live music that satisfies me, just like there's something about the peace of the Gospel that also quenches something in me. I have to have both. After the concert, some of us went to Alberto's for some cheap Mexican food. The interesting thing about this dining experience (other than the transient man who kept asking for 50 cents for a cup of coffee when he already had one) was that single people outnumbered marrieds. That's a rare feat these days.

Well, I want to get home. Next time I'll write about bowling. (maybe).

Long-Awaited Yellowstone Pictures

Well, it's been almost a month since I went with Meegaa to Yellowstone, but I just haven't had time to fiddle around with pictures because I've had so many other things to do (see entry entitled "Lists" for details). I finally decided to hang out in the lab long enough to get these done. I'm on my third CD now. Let's see if I can finish before this album ends. Without further ado, here are the pictures. (Oh, the first picture is of Jackson, by the way... a lovely view from the road.)

You've got to take advantage of bears posing ferociously on the streets of Jackson Hole.

Jackson Hole totally fed my curiousity for rustic decor. This store sold ugly chairs made from twigs and horns for over $1500!

Meegaa and I wanted to go cheap on our trip, so I discovered the value of hostels. This is a hostel in Driggs, ID. Everything in Driggs was closed when we got there at 7:00 pm. So Meegaa chatted on the phone and I read a harlequin romance from the bookshelf.

Here's where we finally get to Yellowstone. I'll just let you enjoy the pictures on this one.

These next three images might need a little explanation. We saw these amazing lillypad ponds. Neither of us had ever seen lillypads before, so we wanted a flower. I climbed into the pond to get one. We stuck it in my Nalgene and kept it the rest of the trip.

There were so many great signs at Yellowstone, such as this one:

After we left Yellowstone the first day, we traveled on the Buffalo Bill Cody Scenic Byway, so I could earn some money for work. This is what it looked like:

This was a really great house we saw. At first, we thought it was a ship, sailing on the prairies of Wyoming, but it turned out to be a house. We tried to get up closer to the house, but there was a no trespassing sign, and I obey laws.

This is the Buffalo Bill Cody Reservoir:

We spent the night in Cody, Wyoming at a very overpriced Motor Lodge. The next morning, we drove the Chief Joseph Scenic Byway.

After stopping to take some pictures, we found ourselves following this truck for many miles. The sun kept reflecting off the shiny stuff in the bed of his truck. We couldn't figure it out. It began to fascinate us, and we didn't want to stop anywhere for fear that we would lose sight of the truck. Eventually, we did stop for lunch.

This is where we had lunch - on the Beartooth Highway, an All-American Road. I had a buffalo burger. It was my first (quite tastey).

We entered Yellowstone again, although we took considerably less photos on this last day, but here's one of Tower Falls.

Then, to our great happiness, as we came down from the viewing point, what should be in the parking lot except our favorite truck. It was much more of a tourist attraction than the falls. We weren't the only ones taking pictures.

The last thing we saw was Mammoth Hot Springs. I would've loved to climb all over them, but there are lots of pathways that you have to follow. It was kind of disappointing that way.

Well, that's pretty much it. I took some pictures of bison, bears, and elk, but mostly for Meegaa to show her friends. I don't really care about showing my friends stuff like that. I'd rather show them a picture of Old Faithful Inn - cause it's cool and an example of national park rustic.

That didn't take too long at all - I still have plenty of CD to hear. Well, thanks for stopping by!

Lists

Did you know that I'm a big fan of lists? I make lists for everything. Sometimes they are pros and cons lists, sometimes grocery lists, sometimes bills I have to pay lists, but the most popular of all is the To Do list. I like to put little boxes next to what I have to do. Then I can check them off - not with an X, but with an actual checkmark. I like to write them out in my best handwriting. That makes them seem more official. Right now, I'm so busy trying to get things ready for Austria, graduation, and grad school applications that I had to put categories on my To Do list. I thought you might like a voyeuristic look at the types of things I have to do. If not, then just don't finish reading this 'cause that's all that's left.

Study Abroad

• Find out about trains from Salzburg to Innsbruck
• Copy financial aid statement
• Copy travel itinerary
• Make appt with Dr. Osborne about Women's Studies class in spring
• Talk to fin. aid office about part-time status for spring.

GRE

• Schedule time for general test
• Follow-up about moving the subject test
• If possible, send in registration for subject test
• Study!
• Look up essay topics

Grad School

• Get copies of transcript from USU
• Write personal statements
• Revise writing samples
• Fill out applications
• Oh yeah, look into USU grad school (just in case)
• Pay application fees

Graduation

• Get application signed by Women's Studies
• Get application signed by Art History
• Turn in application and pay fee
• Find out if I have to complete the CILs before I turn in the application

I've actually been carrying around this list all day and haven't gotten anything done. Maybe I'll try to cross off one or two of them before I leave today.

Well, I hope that was exciting for you, but honestly, it just left me feeling a little overwhelmed.

Hi

I just wanted to say hi to anyone visiting from everyone wants my hair. I also wanted to say that I'm honored to be a featured site from such a respected establishment as this new blog.

DIY Project

This past Saturday, I helped my friends with a project. They own two townhouses right next to each other and are always going back and forth. To ease this commute, they decided to make a hole in between their two bedrooms. The hole has been there since last March, not quite finished. So this weekend, we decided to try and do what we can to get it done. We started off by filling it up with some foamy insulation.

Then Mimi used her circular saw on a makeshift table to cut some sheetrock to fill in the cracks.

I helped with the drilling. The sheetrock left a fine dust all over everything that sometimes would get into my eyes, so I tried wearing some goggles:

Then we just had to putty it and sand it. That's as far as we could go, though. This final picture doesn't have any of the putty on, but this is what it looks like right now:

It's not pretty. Not yet. But it will be.

Adventures with Meegaa

I've been busy these past couple weeks entertaining my friend Meegaa who came to visit from Mongolia. Here are some pictures from some of our adventures. I'll start with Bear Lake: