Happy new Year!

Hm, the numbering is off, which makes it look like i posted this a second before new years. cool. I looked at my livejournal (because my blog doesn't turn 1 for another couple weeks) to see what i said last year, but to my surprise i didn't post on new years. my closest post was on the 4th, and it started off with how i had broken my phone. 1 year ago that phone was broken, and it didn't get replaced until about 3 weeks ago. That tells you something about me. Other than the broken phone, 2007 was one of the best years of my life. It was full of accomplishments, changes, and new exciting developments. I feel much closer to being an adult than i did last year (although the idea that i'm probably within a few years of marriage still blows my mind). I graduated high school, i got my eagle scout, i went to college, i was ordained an elder, and most recently i got my wisdom teeth out, the basic right of passage for leaving adolescence, unless you're michael mcnally, and then it's your basic right of passage for being 16...weird-o.

New years celebrations were great. We got a bunch of fireworks, and over the course of the night i got pretty good at taking pictures of them. We watched star wars earlier tonight, and had gingerale at midnight because isaac likes to make toasts.

As far as 2008 is concerned, i think it'll be another pretty big year in my life, since it's when i head of for two years as a missionary. That'll be an adventure and a half. I'm bad at new years resolutions, so i'm not going to try to think of any right now, but i'll come up with some over the next couple days and write them in my real journal. And with that i begin my foray into the new year by heading towards bed.

~a cup o' kindness

In case of emergency, spend all day in bed.

I just realized it was saturday, that was kinda disappointing. I've discovered that my pain medicine makes me sleepy. This isn't all that suprising, since it says right on the botle that it may cause drowsiness, but this is the first medicine that's made me drowsy. Niquil and Benadryl, while difficult to spell, don't really do anything for me, so this feeling of just wanting to lounge around all day and read lemony snickett is novel.

I have been occasionally productive though. I made another camera case, since my first one was lost and then slept on, and then i improved it to make a pocket for my little felt screen cleaner. I've taken copious amounts of photos, and made a time lapse of a settlers of catan game, and realized that a time lapse of risk would be rad, and decided to do that some day. Yesterday i spent a few hours working on my made gift, which required bamboo, a guitar, and a power saw, so now that's almost done.

Other than that days have been pretty slow filled with games and planet earth. I guess i'm going back up to jackson in a couple days for new years, so that'll be a party. Hopefully the package of stuff for friends will have come in by then, or else i'm going to have to mail it or something, and that'd be weak.

salut

"But then he won't be wise!"

well, i am now short three wisdom teeth. Happily i get to keep one of my lower wisdom teeth, which means about half as much pain and i retain the ability to chew, which is a big plus. I took some photos of the experience, because that's what i can do.




not the greatest day outside, but it was as good a day as any to sit in bed for 24 hours.

I don't remember much of the whole experience. I went in, and they talked to me a bit, i got an IV. They anesthetized it, which seemed pretty unnecessary, especially since it still seemed like it hurt about as much as normal. Then they gave me a shot of something, and about 10 seconds later i was out. It was interesting because usually i don't really remember falling asleep, but this time i actually felt it coming on and losing consciousness. Anyway, sometime later i woke up feeling pretty out of it. I got up and really wanted to walk on my own, but my mom helped me, which was probably good, since about 2 hours later i was still struggling to walk without running into things.

I wish i had asked the doctors to set my camera up on time lapse, because that would have been a sweet video, but alas. Anyway, i took some pictures while i was pretty out of it, i don't really remember taking them, but they're here, so that's cool.

Me being out of it.



Me being more out of it.




I couldn't focus on anything, and somehow i though this would be apparent if i took a picture of my eye.





but it wasn't.

After that my camera's battery died, and i wasn't awake enough to charge it up for a few hours.

At about 7 that night i was awake enough though, and so i took a sweet picture of my eye.




So yeah, i'm feeling a bit better now. The left side of my mouth still hurts a decent bit, but it's getting better, and the whole delirium thing has passed, so that's a plus. My homemade camera case got left in the car i think, it's easy to lose things when you're barely concious, because the whole, "where's the lst place you had it" strategy doesn't work when you can't remember large spans of your day.

I made a pretty awesome video of myself, i'm going to try to post that, and hopefully it'll work. Woo it will, it's going to take a while.



It's sort of hard to tell what i'm saying, but this is the gist:
"well, i just got my wisdom teeth out, and i can't really focus on anything or ???? things. I think i'm biting my lip, but hopefully this will be funny when i'm, you know, cognizant again, so, till then."

So fun times, not being able to spit is a bit of a drag, especially when brushing my teeth, which is also a drag since i can't brush all my teeth. Hopefully i'll be better by new years.

I couldn't sleep at all last night, probably symptomatic of sleeping all day, but it was still a pain. Sometime while i was mostly asleep i had a dream that i made a really good sandwich and then remembered that i couldn't eat it. That was disappointing to the max.

I watched meet the Robinson's the other day, which was a surprisingly good movie. Plus the Danny Elfman and All American Rejects combo is always something worthwhile. That about all for now, i need to finish my made gift.

Christmas!

Christmas has once again come and gone, and twas pretty awesome. I got a Digital Camera and a printer, both are pretty high quality. I also got a game and some clothes and 20 bucks, so not the greatest catch as far as quantity, but i'm vvery happy with it. I just made the obligatory case out duck tape and felt, which is pretty good considering i did it entirely on my own.

So, pictures!


Isaac got some lego, and he's been pretty happy about that. He also got a bike, but he doesn't know how to ride one yet, so i think he's more happy about the lego.



the parents got Dread Pirate, which we played. It's very fun, and the board is awesome. The map is on this canvas type thing, and the dubloons are actually made of medal.



Isaac also got Operation, which he wasn't too happy about at first, but it caught on eventually. It provided a good subject for playing with the macro setting on my camera.

Today has been pretty chill, we had breakfast and have played games and i've spent most of the day fiddling with the camera. Now we're watching planet earth and waiting for my mom to finish this math crossword thing.

Tomorrow i get my wisdom teeth out, that'll be an adventure. So hopefully the anesthesia won't kill me, because that would be a dissapointing way to die. There was a pretty sketchy defibulator in the office when i got my oral exam. Anyway, that's about all for today. Happy Christmas everybody.

Marley was dead, to begin with.

Hm. Charles Dickens ends a sentence with a preposition.

I want to post my 100th blog entry on new years or new years eve or something, because i think having a round 100 posts for 2007 would be nice. Therfore, i need to post some 5 times in the next week, and so off i go.

When last we left our intrepid hero, he was just getting into biloxi. I spent that weekend with the family, enjoying good food, hanging out with isaac, watching movies, and playing games, all sorts. On monday i went to an Oral Surgeon and set up an appointment to have my wisdom teeth taken out, on this coming wednesday. After that i drove up to jackson and went to a Sal and Mookies party and hung out with caitlin and josh and johnny and meghan, so that was all kinds of an adventure. I slept at Caitlin's that night, since her brother was out of town I had a fairly large room and a bed to myself, so that was cool.

Tuesday i had a dentist appointment, but i watched starwars 5 for a while before that. Yoda is funny as ever. The dentist was about as enjoyable as any experience that involves sharp medal and teeth. I found out i have a cavity in the Widsom tooth i'm keeping, so that's going to have to get taken care of at some point, i guess now i have motivation to find a dentist up in SLC.

otherwise tuesday was pretty chill, i went down to johnny's and got dinner with him, terri, and andrew, on Terri's dime. After that i played a lot of World of Warcraft and didn't go to Emmett's. I thought about it, but ended up staying at johnny's that night. Wednesday i played a bit more world of warcraft and then we went up to caitlin's and did some more hanging out, and i saw michael in all his long haired glory. Roberta was there too, so that was cool. Blow guns are pretty fun.

Lets see...thursday was nice, i stayed at caitlin's again on wednesday and we made brownies. There were originally plans to watch the lord of the rings extended editions, but that fell through. We drove to Cups eventually to drop kyle off, and ended up staying there for a while because Emmett and Tyler were there, so we hung out with them for quite some time. Then we went to spencer's and played guitar hero, which was way fun. Oh, and i saw kirk and michael and, obviously, spencer. I slept at spencer's and played lots of Super mario Galaxy that night, which is a very fun game.

I realized that night that in a perfect world, or at least the ideal life i imagine myself having someday, video games aren't present. I like playing video games, but mostly either as a social event or as a way to pass the time. There are usually many things that i would rather be doing than playing video games.

Anyway, friday was my last full day in down, and it was alright. We got up late and then went to see I Am Legend, which i liked. It's gotten some criticism for the ending, but i can't think of an ending i would like more, i think it's just in that awkward region between sappy and awful, where you find sad but somewhat hopeful. Anyway, i enjoyed it, certainly not the best movie i've even seen, but fully worth the 5ish dollars. Plus we saw Mr. Chris Cambell at the movies and talked for a while and one thing led to another and i got a Sweeney Todd poster, so that's awesome. I'm not sure if i'm going to be able to get it back to Utah, but we can only hope. I feel kinda weird because although Sweeney Todd is a movie i really think is intereseting, i'm not going to see it for as long as i am living under this decision to not watch rated R movies, so it seems almost phoney to have a massive poster of it up in my room...oh well.

after the movie we went back to spencer's and ate dinner. Michael left and a little bit later Roberta came and we played Risk, so that was fun. I lost early due to some terrible luck and poor circumstances. Spencer won late, which made me happy, because Spencer has had more than his fair share of unreasonably poor luck in Risk, and it's resulted in me beating him at least twice.

Saturday i woke up and went a-hunting for Bamboo with spencer for a gift i'm making, since Bamboo doesn't grow in Biloxi as far as i've seen. After that i drove back, and got back into biloxi around 6, at which point i started practicing feverishly for an accompaniment gig i had agreed to do today, which went as well as i could have hoped. Overall the trip to jackson was pretty good, i didn't see everybody i wanted to, i didn't get in touch with hunter at all, which was unfortunate, but i forgot my charger in biloxi so i was living mostly without a phone. I'm planning on going up around new years and hopefully i'll see him and get ultimate going like i had planned.

It's really starting to feel like christmas, we made cookies today, andt here are presents under the tree. I don't have any idea what i'll be getting for christmas, but hopefully it'll be rockin'. I've gotten presents for roughly three of my friends, and i'm pretty stoked about all of them. I need to think of presents for the rest of my friends, and i'm slightly limited by the fact that i have all of 10 dollars to my name, so it looks like a trip to the dollar store. If you get a present from the dollar store, don't take it as an insult, think of it as 10 percent of my financial worth.

~The Ghost of Christmas Presents

No Crocodiles, or Rhinoceroseses

So i'm home. Now that i'm actually in the house in biloxi, it does feel pretty homey. There's a christmas tree, and my old computer chair (which is still mad comfortable) and family, and catan, and all kinds of cool things. My mom made me tortellini for dinner, which was delicious, probably the best meal i've had in months.

The flight was pretty great, i got there 2 hours early which meant i had to sit for around 2 hours with nothing much to do. I wrote a bit in my journal and watched CNN. I'm not a big fan of CNN. The fact that they give the news all day long means that unless there's a steady flow of interesting news, the majority of the day is news about which i don't care.

Like coffee preferences among the presidential candidates. Why in the world would i care how they like their coffee? btw, clinton sometimes drinks black and sometimes goes with the cream. Obviously she is indecisive and a poor leader.

Eventually the flight got moving and i had a whole 2 seats to myself. My window was pretty shoddy, but i'm glad there was enough room that i didn't have to sit next to random Jack Daniels drinker who was originally going to be in 7C. I mean he was a nice enough guy, but i enjoyed having a bit of space. I almost fell asleep, but that didn't quite happen, so instead i played solitaire on my iPod and managed to lose several times. When it finally looked like i was going to win we were landing so they told me to turn it off. I actually just remembered so i pulled it out and it was still on it but i pressed menu which restarted it. That was a little disappointing.

Oh, so most amazing coincidence. As i was walking on to the plane, what should my iPod randomly shuffle to but John Denver's "Leaving on a Jet Plane." The odds of that were like 1 in 3000. If my iPod's battery didn't just die i could tell you exactly what the odds are, but regardless, it was pretty cool.

I want to compile a full list of the things i want, but i still don't really know. I have gradually thought of more things that i need/want.

The originals still hold, i definitely want a Digital Camera, and i hope that happens, but i'd survive not having it for christmas. That's actually true of most of the gifts i want, they aren't really things i want now, just things i want between now and next year. Anyway, a few new things:

Cool posters, my walls are rather bare. Something by Escher would be awesome, also bands that i like, bands that i don't like, good movies, bad movies, sports, really just any poster that you think i might like would be great. I need to make my walls more interesting.

Music is always awesome, I love being introduced to new music. Burned cd's are probably the best cheap present in the world because they're almost free but are made with love...and piracy. And who doesn't love pirates?

As far as video games, i dunno. I need to play mario galaxy, but i think that might be a game i could rent, beat, and move on with my life.

Clothes and stuff are great. I like having new clothes, but there are only a few people i know that i trust to buy real clothes for me, but clever t-shirts and hoodies are much appreciated. Hoodies especially, it's wicked cold in utah (not so much here. My first thought as i got off the plane, even before, "New Orleans smells bad" was, "man it's warm here". Biloxi actually feels pretty nice, pretty cool and not too humid).

Candy is cool, but candy doesn't last very long, and half the fun of presents for me is the fact that i always remember where they came from. So everlasting gobstoppers are great, not those cheap ones that you find in the grocery store. I'm talking about the stuff straight from Wonka's shop. That stuff is quality.

Books are good, but barring a few amazing books, i can just borrow a book and give it back and i'll get pretty much the same effect.

And any other cool stuff is probably safe. Some of my favorite gifts have been absolutely random stuff, just because of the memories they have. A good rule of thumb is if you want someting for yourself, i'll love it, unless you want something that i obviously wouldn't want (like girls clothing) or you want to punch me in the face; i will not love that.

Well, it's getting late even by college in mountain time standards, and i have a full day of being on vacation to prepare for, so adieu, adieu, parting is such sweet sorrow.

~Sister Susie sittin' on a thistle.

P.S., just because this is awesome, years ago i really wanted a rhinoceros for christmas, and so my mom wrote me a poem, reminiscent of Shel Silverstein's stuff, about wanting a rhino for christmas.

Thursday, I don't care about you; it's Friday, I'm in love.

Friday can't come soon enough, i am so ready to be done with this semester, i only have 2 essays and another final. My math final went fairly well this morning, i felt like i was failing it but when i went back through it there was only one problem that i was struggling with, and he drops our worst problem, and gives pretty decent partial credit, and then there's the curve. Oh the glorious curve. I wonder if honors classes are graded on the curve, because that would be crippling, especially since a 3.5 is required for an honors degree, and quite a few honors students are on some sort of scholarship with a minimum gpa requirement. Hopefully it's more of a parabola.

Christmas is only 2 weeks away. This semester has been absurdly fast, i still don't really feel like i've found my groove in this whole college life thing, but it's getting there. Next semester the groove changes completely with classes different and such, and a new roommate, madness.

I decide that i'd rather not have guitar hero for christmas. It's a really fun game, but 90 dollars could be spend much more effectively, like on a digital camera. I also want to become really good at rock climbing, but i don't see that happening for christmas or next semester, since rock climbing and winter don't mix well, except for indoor, which remains wicked fun.

I really need to stop procrastinating, those essays aren't going to write themselves. I have such a hard time motivating myself at the very end of school, it's a pretty bad time to lose motivation, especially is college. I proved in high school that i could survive not trying for the last term, but in college the last couple weeks is responsible for a pretty sizable portion of the final grade.

I had a dream last night that was a good reflection of my subconscious. First of all, i stayed up all night doing nothing in particular, i think i hung out with some people, at 8am i was going to head to sleep, but then i didn't have any place to sleep, i think i ended up sleeping in some sort of hammock thing in that field where we play frisbee. I was somehow simultaneously at the dorms and in jackson because i was suprised when i couldn't sleep in the Howard st. house, and then i realized that i had a dorm to sleep in. It was a weird dream. Dreams always seem to last longer than it takes to describe them, and they always lose a lot of their meaning. It's weird.

But yeah, wasting all my time and feeling like i'm short one home is pretty common as of late. I'm excited to get back to mississippi, but i can't really call biloxi home, mostly because i've only been there for two days, and i don't know anyone there other than my family. I'm also looking forward to making it up to jackson. I think i have a tendency to complain about my friends sometimes, and i somehow expected to find these perfect people to hang out with in Utah. As it turned out, my friends in mississippi were, and are, pretty crazy awesome, and it's hard to imagine actual people who were much better. I had a workout buddy, a second string work-out buddy (who was hampered by his lack of Y membership), video game buddies, risk buddies, tv buddies, movie buddies, Ultimate frisbee buddies, talking about stuff buddies, work buddies, do nothing buddies...the list of buddies goes on and on, most of which i haven't been able to dublicate here.

So i'm hoping for some all inclusive roommate buddy to move in next semester, because i'm sure that'll happen. I do have a climbing buddy, a doing really stupid but fun stuff buddy, and snow buddies up here, and i would have ultimate frisbee buddies if it wasn't so snowy and cold, and i have church buddies for the first time in a while, so it's not all lost. I am short a best buddy, and those are pretty vital.

So aside from being agonizingly close to leaving, life has been pretty bland during this finals week. I just want to be done, but it'll come soon enough, until then I have essays to put off.

~The Down of a Thistle

Let me tell y'all what it's like being male, middle class, and white.

Man, today was entirely too awesome. So lets see...morning was so-so, i had class, but then i got my phone back. Woo! I'd lost it on the shuttle, and someone just found it a couple days ago, and conveniently had the charger necessary for charging it up to call my mom. I'm glad there are people that are that dedicated in making up for my absent mindedness/unsatisfactory pocket quality.

Then i had physics, more mehsh, but it was my last class of this semester, from here on it's 2 papers and 2 exams and i'm out. Lets see, after physics i worked out, and ran into the Honors Floor Gang. Wow, when you write it out it looks wicked official. Anyway, so that was good, then i walked back up with them, and hung around for a bit. I got some food, and on my way out they (the honors gang) were playing pool, so i went and hung out there for a bit and when steven left i took over for him and totally owned in pool until i scratched on the 8-ball. That's kinda how i play pool, i don't think it's the best strategy.

After that i hung out with Tim, watched scrubs, played guitar hero for a while....a long while, and at some point molly james came by and they played, and my roomate played some and his friend played...anyway, we ended up playing for a solid few hours. It started snowing at around 5 and by midnight there was 4-6 inches, so after a bit of convincing i tim and molly james to go. Me and Tim and James had a pretty intense snowball fight while we waited for Molly to finish getting snow stuff, and then we went down to the glenn for a bit, but that got old fast, and so i took us over to the giant hill that runs right into the street, but the snow at the bottem was powdery that we stopped...except for tim.

And that's how tim got his limp for christmas.

not really, but he did hit that road pretty hard, there were no cars around though, so it was relatively safe, relative to doing something completely stupid...say jumping off a bridge.

Anyway, sledding was way fun, i got hot so i took my jacket and underarmor off and when i was so close it was a pretty natural next step to go sledding with no shirt on. That was way too intense, tim tumbled and got very cold, and it didn't help that molly james were throwing snowballs at us while we tried to put our stuff back on.

So after that we started to head back, which took around an hour, there were originally plans to build a giant wall of snow infront of the door, by rolling a ball of snow all the way back, but by about 1/4 the way there it was too heavy for us to roll, so we broke it up and threw boulder sized pieces of snow at molly james.

A side note, in order to clear any confusion, Molly and James are two seperate people, who are also a couple, and are almost never seen apart, thus Molly James.

then a bit of snow football (where the football was made from the remains of the snow boulder) and some more stupid snow fun, and then me and Tim walked back and here i am.

Lets see, the rest of this past week has been pretty ok, nothing too great. I lost my phone the thursday before last, and had pretty much given up on it by monday, i had my last midterm, watched the heroes season finale (lame, darn writers strike), lots of guitar hero (we tallied it up with the Wii and it worked out to around 25 hours over the past week and a bit), aaand that's the gist.

I'm so full of andreneline and awesome that i'm not at all tired, which isn't great, because i have 2 papers to write for next week, one of which is actually pretty significant, and an essay on tuesdasy and thursday, then friday i fly back. wow, 7 days from now i'll be in Biloxi. I really don't know where to call home these days...I think jackson qualifies, i've lived there longer than anywhere else, but now i don't have a house or a family there...

Anyway, i'm going to read some and try to get some sleep, it's supposed to snow most of tomorrow, although i'm not sure where we can go from how awesome tonight was, i'd hate to hit the peak with 2/3's of winter left over.

I need to go snowboarding.

~Linus, not Lucy