Merry Foolmas Charlie Brown!

Well April Fools has come and gone without a whole lot of fuss, mostly because of a lack of spare time, duct tape, and/or saran wrap. Today was a pretty average day, although i'm glad i had google to fill my foolishness quota.

Lets see, what's new: I have a physical thursday for my mission and to find out if i'm going to be able to walk long term. I'm thinking now with the way my knee is healing and reading up on some google that i messed up my Meniscus, which from what i've read would be ok because it's a fairly easy fix (possibly by just moving around my knee a bit, worst case scenario a bit of simple surgery with a relatively quick recovery). It's fairly easy to tear the meniscus a bit to where it gets in the way of the knee's movement, which seems to be what's happening now, since my knee is almost entirely ok if you ignore the fact that i can't straighten it out. The symptoms line up a whole lot better than more serious things like torn ligaments and broken bones, and there's nothing much less serious you can do that results in your leg not straightening out. So i'm pretty hopeful. If it's really bad i'd be looking at a few months of rehab, which would suck, but would only push my mission back by a month or so, which would be ok, if it's as good as possible the doctor could just wiggle my knee around and i'd be up and walking. So yeah, fun stuff. If you want to read a lot more about Menisci, check out http://orthopedics.about.com/cs/meniscusinjuries1/a/meniscus.htm although it probably won't be as interesting if you're not spending half your time thinking about your knee.

Anyway, other than facing longterm knee issues even worse than my genetics would suggest, life is good. I might be going to general conference, there's a shortage of tickets in our ward, but as a soon to be missionary and a kid from out of state i get some priority. I also might have a date this weekend, if i can work out the time, which would be cool. 50 dollars recently appeared in my checking account, which i'm pegging either to parents, or Bank Faeries. This is good news, since the pain research people that owe me 50 dollars are having a suspiciously hard time mailing the check to me, so i have 50 dollars less than i was planning to right now.

4 weeks from now i will be in Biloxi, so crazy. I'm sort of sad about leaving, but i'm definitely happy to be living with people that don't smell like smoke all the time and refrain from most if not all illegal activities. I feel like i'm finally settling in to Utah, making real friends, finding stuff to do, all that jazz, so it sort of sucks to leave now. But 2 years and however long it takes for me to get back into normal life, i'm sure i'll be just as happy as i would be if i stayed (more so actually, since i'll be on the other side of my mission, which by default makes me a man.)

Now that i'm looking at having a working knee again, i think i should go snowboarding again before the season is done. In fact, I've been getting pretty good, so i've been putting some thought into just dropping this whole college/mission deal and going pro. I think that's probably the best thing for me to do right now.

anyway, i should go to sleep, i'm planning on waking up an hour early (9a.m.) so that i can make sure i'm ready for a quiz tomorrow. So i'd better go to bed now if i want 8hrs of sleep. Oh, btw, it's still snowing in Utah, I thought it was crazy when there was snow in the mountains in march when Katie and Logan got married, there's still snow on the ground and feet and feet of snow up in the canyon.

"We used to laugh a lot but only because we thought that everything good always would remain, nothing gonna change there's no need to complain"

Waiting for my invitation to arrive, walking with a deadman

It's been a while since i updated, crazy days. Lets see, last time i had just hurt my self snowboarding, since then i recovered and went again, and did nearly the same thing again, minus the concussion, although that just meant i was conscious for the actual leg injury, which was really quite painful, so i'm once again recovering, i have to say i'm getting sort of tired of limping, but such is the price i pay for awesome, i think i'm getting to the point where if i don't push my limits too far i'll be able to have a lot of fun snowboarding without hurting myself at all, which means i'll be able to go a lot more often. Unfortunately this comes both at the end of the season and as i'm getting too close to my mission to risk any debilitating injuries, so i think i'm done for a couple years, unless i go to the swiss alps on my mission, but even then i doubt they'll let me snowboard on p-days.

Speaking of missions, i've started filling out my papers, which is exciting. My Bishop told me that i need to cut my hair, which will be interesting. I haven't gotten a haircut all year, it's fun to have long hair, and i'm guessing i'm going to look about 18 years younger with short hair, but whatever, it has to happen sometime, it'll be nice to not have to keep pushing my hair out of my face.

I've grown fairly broke over the last few weeks, although Colin spotted me some cash and i'm supposed to be getting $50 dollars in the mail in a couple days. I need to remember to do my taxes since that'll get me a bunch more money so that hopefully i won't have to donate plasma for a while.

I went to Amy's for Easter Break/the end of spring break, and that was lots of fun. I hadn't seen Amy in quite a while, and i hadn't seen her kids since one of them was a baby and the other one didn't exist. I must say, those kids are pretty adorable, Carter is much cuter in person than in pictures. We couldn't do anything to crazy awesome since i wasn't really in peak physical condition, but we went to the beach, and the farmers market and played games and all those fun times. The flight back was pretty long, since we had a 2hour scheduled layover in San Fran and then our plane was an hour late coming from Boise...stupid Boise, so i got back last night at around midnight, and then of course stayed up for a couple hours to watch the end of lost and post some pictures on facebook, i think everyone who reads this has my facebook, so i won't post them here. But yeah, all in all the last couple weeks have been lots of fun, i go back to biloxi in 5 weeks. Madness. I realized that i'm Utah is quickly becoming home to me, since jackson is missing family and biloxi is missing friends, i have both here, so yeah.

That's all, i have physics homework and i have to design my own personal Hell and describe it and those in it in a four page paper, so i have a long night of figuring out ways to procrastinate ahead of me. Auf Wiedersehen

Busted Stuff

Well, i did end up going snowboarding today, which was great, i'm getting to the point where i can turn and stop and carve without falling and such, which makes the whole business a lot more fun. Despite this, i did fall and get a mild concussion, which wasn't fun, i don't remember falling at all, i just remember sitting for a while until i got to the point where i could go again. I was wearing a helmet, so that's good, and i'm pretty much better now. I also hurt my knee a bit, and i have a bit of a black eye, but all in all a good time, and will probably be the only time i can snowboard during the day out here because it's so expensive. I also got a pretty attractive sunburn on a very small part of my face, so it looks sort of like a rash.

The moral of this story is that i'm going to look way busted up for the formal tonight. I was going to try to make my hair somewhat formal, ala Christian Bale in batman (i totally don't have a man crush on christian bale, don't listen to such lies...), instead of the little mushroom thing i have going on, but instead i think i'm going to use it to hide my black eye. An additional moral is that it may not be the best idea to go snowboarding right before the church formal, but c'est la vie.

Those concerned about my health and decision making ability should know that i resisted the urge to go on that last run when i found out i had hurt my knee, which turned out to be a great idea since a little while later i realized that i was concussed, and just how much my knee hurt.

So now i'm hanging out until the formal wishing i could take a nap but would rather not go comatose, so here i am. I bought super smash brothers brawl yesterday, meaning that between snowboarding, the formal, and that i've spent over 100 dollars in a period of less than 24 hours, but i have tax returns coming up and i'm donating my life energy next saturday, which should cover the bills. I should clarify that while i paid for it yesterday, i'm picking it up tonight. I couldn't do the tournament they were doing because i decided that would be a little messed up to leave the dance about 45 minutes into it.

So yeah, good stuff all in all. i believe this is the first time i've had a concussion, at least that i can remember. On the other hand, i don't remember actually getting the concussion, just the after affects, so it's possible i've gotten concussions before but just mistaked them for being tired and having a headache.

I decided that from what i've heard, being concussed is fairly similar to getting drunk, and considering the way bashing my brain against the inside of my skull makes me feel, the appeal in alcohol alludes me.

Now i'm nursing my snowboarding hangover, i really wish i could take a nap, oh well.

"Oh, all that i know, there's nothing here to run from...

It's going to be warmer in Utah than in mississippi tomorrow (by one degree). Madness.

In other maddening news, I found out today that my Dad has to have an operation tomorrow for Colon cancer. From what i've heard, it seems that after the operation it should be fine, but still, it's scary and weird. That's twice this year that someone i've cared about has had to deal with cancer, i still don't know what to do with it.

This is also weird because i have a very hard time imagining my dad sick. He's never sick, i honestly can't think of a single time in my life that he's been sick, i'm sure they've happened, but i can't remember them. I think i have this image of my dad being above things like disease and age, which is sort of how i feel about myself as well, which adds to the weirdness of all this because if he's not immune to things like that, i don't suppose i am either. Without a doubt one of my greatest fears is becoming old, or more specifically, incapable. But yeah, if you're the type to pray, it'd definitely be appreciated.

Despite this, and to my surprise, life continues. This weekend looks to be enjoyable, although i expect tomorrow will be difficult, 4 straight hours of class, that on what looks to be very little sleep, but once that's done i can relax and enjoy my weekend. If i can convince Kelly to take me to donate plasma i'll go snowboarding on Saturday. I've realized that this friend i've made is a whole lot like Logan, it's sort of weird, but Logan (and therefore jake, said friend) being a righteous dude, it makes for some fun times.

I don't know...little things seem so pointless at the moment, i need to sleep.

...and there, everybody's got somebody to lean on"

You're the best around, nothing's ever gonna keep you down...

So i just bowled a 170, best game of my life so far, i think the next best was 162 or something, and after that i've mostly cruised in the 140's, but yeah, i was amazed. Best of all, i did the whole thing while curving the ball, although i still snipe off little pins by bowling straight, which i can do surprisingly consistently now. The best part of all this is that Jake, Murph and I decided that whoever won would get treated to a free movie by the losers, so chya, free dollar movie for me.

Otherwise, life is pretty basic these days. Super smash brothers Brawl comes out saturday night, so i've been playing some melee to remember how that game was. The need to release the original on virtual console, and i need to make my wireless internet work again so i can use virtual console. What else...i'm going to a church formal saturday night, which reminds me, i need to find a bow tie, and figure out how to make my increasingly long hair formal.

I was watching napoleon dynamite the other day and it made me remember how much i disliked high school. High school is so dumb, with the drama and the teachers and the ridiculous rules. I can have cell phones and food in class and it doesn't seem to detract from the learning environment. So glad that's over with, college is way more fun. I highly recommend it.

Oh, i also might go snowboarding on saturday if i manage to go donate plasma so that i can fund it. So that could be some more fun times. Well that's about all that's going down here. Clinton has slowed obama's momentum by playing dirty, but with two states Obama is pretty strong in coming up he can probably get that back and become president. Hurrah.

we now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Thursday, I do care about you.

This weather we've been having is absolutely gorgeous. High 40's, sunny, all the snow is melting so ultimate is happening again. It makes me a little giddy, although the sore throat is keeping that in check. And even better, despite all the gorgeous weather down here, it's still snowing up in the canyon, meaning more amazing snowboarding, and at 15 dollars a night, i should be able to get a few more trips in before the end of the season.

Last night i went bowling and sucked it up, 103 and 74, but it was fun, when we went to Dee's and i got a massive plate of curly fries, because lots of carbs right before you go to sleep is really healthy, no? I think that might have contributed to the bunches of energy. That's about all that's been going on recently. I had a crazy dream last night that i need to talk about at some point, but i don't feel like it right now, so maybe later tonight. I'm getting home taught tonight, and i can't remember the last time i've had a hometeacher...maybe eighth grade. It seems like our family hardly ever had hometeachers, except way long ago, when our hometeacher would give us good cheese...i hope my hometeachers give me good cheese, i bought some bread today, but Ammon cannot live by bread alone.

I want to go snowboarding, it's like a drug.

Better off snowboarding

Good couple of days...good couple of weeks actually, but i'll just talk about the last few days.

Saturday was ok, i slept in until noon because i was at a party until 4 the night before, by about 1am the party was pretty much done but there was lots of hanging out, so yeah. I don't really remember what i did for the majority of the day saturday (well, the day i was up for) but i went to this roller disco thing with Cassie. That was sort of awkward, and the roller disco wasn't helping anything, but it was fun times and 3 dollars reasonably well spent. Sunday was good as usual, i didn't wake up in time to go to elders quorum, so i missed that, but the rest of church was good.

Someone told me i had a really good singing voice. I don't quite know how to deal with that. What am i to do in a world where i'm not somewhat self conscious about my singing ability. Anyway, sunday afternoon i ate supper at jake and carl's, as is now my custom, and then played scum, in which i was never scum, so that was good. Then ward prayer, than off to Sara's to hang out and watch better off dead, great movie. I got home sometime around one, but it's all good because monday i don't have classes until 10:45.

I also talked to my parents for a while on sunday night, and that was nice, especially after i realized that everyone was down stairs so i could talk inside upstairs. It is still quite cold outside.

Today was good, class was average, but no major complaints, and then i went snowboarding at 4 with Tim and James and met Jake and Lara up there. Snowboarding was amazing, and even better because it only cost me 15 dollars. By the last run i was getting to the point where i could actually get some decent control in, although i did fall twice right at the bottom of a hill, and that was frustrating. Best of all, no broken bones, and i even managed to knock a little kid down, so i'm going to call this a success.

I did fall really a lot, although by the end i was getting it down to 2 or 3. This time i very consciously didn't fall on my hands, which makes falls a lot more exciting, and a lot less damaging. I did fall on my elbows a lot, so they're a little raw, and Tim tried to spray me with snow and failed and ended up running right into me, so my right hip will probably get a nice bruise. But other than that just a little muscle soreness and chapped lips, so pretty great day all in all.

So that's about the extent of what's been going on. i'm going to go to sleep now, later days