Week o' Vacationing 2009: Day 3

Sunday morning, half of us headed to a nearby chapel for sacrament meeting at 9, and then back to the motel to pack up and make the journey back to Salt Lake. But not before stopping for lunch at a little placed called In-n-Out. If you've got to eat out on the Sabbath, might as well make it somewhere good, right? :)


Photo courtesy of Julie-Ann (who doesn't have her own blog that I'm aware of)

The trip back was fairly uneventful, and we got back in a reasonable amount of time. Ending vacation #1 of the week. Fun times, props to everyone who helped organize it (me, not being one of those).

But luckily, vacation #2 started that very same day. I unpacked my bag, then repacked it with stuff for 3 days of family vacation in Park City. Once I got word that the rest of the family was headed up there, I hopped in the car and cruised on up myself. The V6 in my new Altima definitely handles Parley's Canyon better than the old Sentra used to.

The place my parents had rented for our trip was a very nice place near the Utah Olympic Park, out by Kimball Junction. Lots of bedrooms and a nice big living room. Even a hot tub that I never actually saw in use during my time there (it might have gotten used without my being aware, or in the time they were still there after I left).

Probably the main highlight of this vacation was getting to spend time with my brother and his family who live in Texas that we don't see as often as we'd like. Their 3 kids get bigger all the time and were lots of fun to play with and get to know better.


Elise trying on my sunglasses


Ben & Lucy watching Prince of Egypt


Natalie feeding Austin


Me playing with the babies. Elise enjoyed putting my pen in my mouth.

Lucy, the oldest, is pretty sharp and at one point suggested we take "funny face" pictures with my camera, which resulted in the collage I posted earlier.



Sunday night, we had a nice dinner of barbecued chicken and corn on the cob, and then after the kiddies were in bed, the grown-ups played a fun game of Tripp family "What were you thinking?" It was lots of fun. Thanks, George and Kimi, for putting that together. Lots of great questions including "Name 4 of Dad's classic phrases". He wasn't even sure he had phrases he said a lot. I guess we showed him. :)

Week o' Vacationing 2009: Day 2

After getting up at a fairly leisurely hour, we piled into the Denali and headed off in search of a breakfast joint called Bear Paw. Surprisingly, it turned out to be just a couple blocks from where we were staying. And the wait for 8 of us to eat breakfast turned out to be around 45 minutes in the end. And yet, I would still say it was worth it. If for nothing else, than for our imagined images of a big chef named "Bear Paw" who makes the special Bear Paw French Toast by shoving the filling in by hand (or by paw, if you will). I got the eggs benedict, and found it quite tasty, as were the seasoned home fries.

After breakfast our plan was to hit the motel pool and get some relaxing in. However, that also seemed to be the plan of about 15 teenagers who had overtaken all the chairs in the pool area. I ran into my cousin and her wife and their kids who were in the kiddie pool, but after a few minutes of swimming, the rest of our group decided that we needed to make other plans for summer heat refreshment.

A couple of the girls had heard good things about Sand Hollow reservoir near Hurricane where you could do some relatively mild cliff jumping and swim. With the "help" of a map from the desk clerk, and some good sign reading, we made it there without incident. And then we headed for the water, because man, it was cooking. Highs were over 110. After about an 8 minute hike we had reached a spot where people were cliff jumping. Half of our party went up to jump, and the other half of us found a nice spot down by the water to start swimming.


Photo courtesy of Anna

I don't know that I've ever really spent much time swimming in a freshwater lake, but this turned out to be pretty fun. The water was nice and cool on a hot, hot day.


Photo courtesy of Anna

After spending the afternoon swimming, we headed back to St. George and regrouped for dinner. We went to a Mexican restaurant called Pancho & Lefty's, and while we didn't meet either Pancho or Lefty, dinner was still quite tasty.


Photo courtesy of Anna

After dinner it was off to Tuacahn for a performance of the stage musical version of Footloose. It turned out to be pretty enjoyable, even if Ren's angry dance scene didn't include any gymnastic moves. The theater itself was pretty cool, with some outdoor space behind the stage which was utilized for a quick game of tractor chicken, and also included a pond for someone to fall into at one point. The lead was played by some guy who'd been on So You Think You Can Dance and he was a good dancer. I also found the performance of Ren's buddy (Willard?) to be very entertaining.


Photo courtesy of Anna

After the show, we slowly made our way back into town with the rest of the audience. I don't recall doing much afterward. I think I was pretty tired out and just went to bed.

Week o' Vacationing 2009: Day 1

A week ago Friday (on the 17th), I got off work a couple hours early (don't worry I put in extra time earlier in the week) and met up with 7 friends (my roommates plus 5 girls) and headed off for a weekend in St. George. We all piled into Brandon's brother's Denali and hit the road. We made pretty good time, watched a few episodes of Arrested Development, enjoyed some "Roxanne", and all in all had a very enjoyable trip down.



We got to St. George in time to go round up some dinner at Texas Roadhouse. I always enjoying eating there. Got me a kabob. Mmm.




Photo Courtesy of Anna

While we ate, somewhat unbeknownst to me, the girls were having fun practicing their "chin juts" with my camera.





After dinner, we swung by the St. George temple, which was looking very pretty at night.




Photo Courtesy of Anna

Then it was back to the motel for a friendly game of no-stakes poker. Mel came out the big winner.


Photo Courtesy of Anna

After hanging out and chatting a while, we headed off to bed. Oh, and I should mention that the temperature was still in the 90s in the middle of the night. Thank heavens for air conditioning!

Back to Life, Back to Reality

Well, I'm back from my Week o' Vacationing and back to work today. I'm going to try to recap my 3 separate vacations over the course of the next week or so. Until then, some Yellowstone photos to enjoy:

2 vacations down, 1 more to go this week

I'm (happily) taking a brief 36 hour break from vacationing to work tomorrow, recharge my batteries, and repack for vacation #3. Here's a little collage of fun times with the Goose to tide you over until I have time to say a little more.

The Big Digital gets ready to hit the road

I know I just got back from one vacation a couple weeks ago, but this afternoon I'm leaving on a series of back-to-back-to-back vacations over the course of 10 days (with one day of work in the middle). I'm thinking that I probably would enjoy these trips more were they more spaced out, but it just worked out this way, and I'm still very excited. I got all my laundry done last night (including a couple of last minute pickups from the TJ-Maxx), and am just trying to make sure I don't forget anything.

Itinerary:
Today: Leave for St. George
Saturday: Survive scorching (Projected High temp: 111) weather, hit Tuacahn
Sunday: Return from St. George, join family for semi-staycationing in Park City
Monday-Wednesday: Enjoy the company of my nieces, nephew, and other family members, maybe hit Raging Waters, relax, etc. Return home Wed. night.
Thursday: Work. :( Pack for Yellowstone camping trip :) Baseball game?
Friday: Leave for Yellowstone. Pray for sunshine.
Saturday: Enjoy the wonders of Yellowstone for the first time ever.
Sunday: Return home. Somehow recover from all that vacationing so that I can go back to work on Monday.

From sea to shining Seattle - Day 2 & 3

My 2nd full day in Seattle was the 4th of July. We started it out right with a free pancake breakfast at Jon's stake center, complete with flag raising ceremony. From there, we headed home to hang out for a bit, and then set out in search of a burger joint we'd seen the night before on the Travel Channel. Sadly, it was closed for the holiday, so we settled for cheap Drive-in burgers from a place called Dick's.

From there we made our way to Bothell to catch the end of a revolutionary war reenactment and meet up with a couple of Jon's friends.


About all we saw of the reenactment.

From there, it was over to Green Lake where some people were hanging out and swimming at a nice public "beach". (Is it a beach if there are concrete steps going down into the water?)


Green Lake

After relaxing by the lake for a while, we hit up the Safeway for some BBQ supplies (a couple of giant kabobs) and headed to a BBQ. While waiting for the food to cook, I managed to defeat the first 3 circuits of Mike Tyson's Punch-out on old school NES. I was pleased to still be able to beat Bald Bull. Got defeated by the 2nd appearance of Piston Honda. :( Anyway, at least the food was delicious.

Following the BBQ, we decided to brave the only major fireworks show in town (tough economic times are affecting everything it seems) at Gasworks Park. We were worried it might end up being way too crowded, but we managed to cram our way onto a fairly steep hillside next to some other Seattle YSAs and in the end I didn't feel like it was any more crowded than going to Sugarhouse here in Utah.


Gasworks Park


The fireworks were shot off from the barge in this photo, out in Lake Union.


Waiting for the show to start, looking across at downtown.

And I have to be honest, the show was pretty spectacular. Not just in terms of creative displays, but also just the sheer size of it all. I don't know if we were sitting closer than I'm used to, but the fireworks definitely seemed grander in scale that what I'm accustomed to. Well done, Seattle.











After the fireworks we made our way back to a friend of Jon's where we'd parked the car, and then waited probably another hour or so for traffic to clear out a bit. At that point we were pretty wiped out, so we called it a night.

Sunday was pretty laidback. We didn't leave the house until it was time for Jon's ward at 1. After what felt like a fairly typical Sunday meeting block, we walked over to UW campus for a brief stroll around the parts that Jon frequents.

From there it was off to another BBQ, this time at the home of a mission friend of mine who was gracious enough to invite us over for grilled salmon. Those of you who know my eating habits will know that I'm not a big fan of anything that swims, but this was actually pretty tasty.

After the BBQ, we went back to Jon's for more relaxing after a long weekend of seeing all that Seattle has to offer. I think Jon put a hundred miles of city driving on his car on the 4th alone, not to mention all the driving we did on Friday.

Monday morning we got up and Jon dropped me off at the airport as the only drops of Seattle rain I saw all weekend were drizzling in. All in all, a pretty great trip.



Flickr photo set.

From sea to shining Seattle - Day 1

I know it's taken me a while to get this posted. Hopefully I can finish it up by the end of the weekend.

Last weekend, I made my first ever trip to Seattle to celebrate the 4th of July with my good friend Jon. I flew up late on Thursday night and Jon picked me up at the airport. We headed to his house and settled in for the night after a brief attempt to stop the zombie apocalypse

In the morning, we got up and headed down to the nearby Madison Beach on the shore of Lake Washington. After a brief stroll around the area and some breakfast quiche, we headed back to Jon's to meet up with some other friends of his.


Madison Beach

From there we headed to downtown Seattle, where we first checked out the public library, then headed to the famous public market where people throw fish, and sell flowers at low-low prices.


Public Market


Fish throwers


Flowers

After that, we walked along the waterfront, and back to the car. We then drove to Kerry Park which has a spectacular overlook of downtown.


From Kerry Park


Wider view

From there, we grabbed another friend, this time a girl, and piled back into the car for more fun. After a few failed lunch options (surprising how many places were closed this weekend) we ended up at a pretty good Thai place. We ate, then checked out CDs at Easy Street records. Not sure when was the last time I was in a music store, but I managed to pick up a 99 cent Chris Brown CD that was in good shape.

From there we headed to Seattle Center, home of the Space Needle and some other stuff. Notably, the Experience Music Project aka EMP aka Rock n' Roll museum. There we got to record our own music video, and jam with real instruments in the Sound Lab. Connected to the EMP is a Science Fiction museum that had a special muppets exhibit going on. Three of us grabbed a muppet and did a brief rendition of Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem's classic "Can You Picture That?"


Odd Man Out


Can You Picture That?


Behind the Scenes

After leaving the museum, we wandered down to a big public fountain there and also saw Green Day's tour buses, as they were playing at Key Arena that night.


Seattle Center Fountain


Green Day Tour Bus

For dinner, we headed to a Moroccan restaurant called Marrakesh where we had a 4 or 5 course meal that was tasty and interesting.


Jon feeling the vibe at Marrakesh

After dinner we headed out to west Seattle to check out Alki beach, and the view of downtown from across a bit of the Puget Sound.


We managed to find this mini-Statue of Liberty at Alki Beach


Sunset


Checking out downtown at night

To cap off the night, Jon and I cruised over to Fremont to see the Fremont troll that lives under the bridge. It also happened to be same night as an attempt to break the record for largest zombie gathering (who keeps these records?), and we happened to run across a couple drunk girls dressed as zombies who agreed to take our photo.


Taken by our zombie photographer


My take on the troll

Up next: 4th of July in Seattle

Come Get a Taste

I've been pretty much non-stop busy since I got back from Seattle Monday afternoon, so haven't had much time to blog up my trip. Hopefully by the end of the week I'll be able to write it up. In the meantime, a photo for your enjoyment.

Holiday Weather

Take a look at the two 5 day weather forecasts below. Can you guess which one is for Salt Lake City (where I live) and which one is for Seattle (where I'm going for vacation this weekend)?





Amazingly enough, the forecast that is all sun is Seattle while Salt Lake is staring at some more rainy days coming up. My only worry is that bad storms will keep my getaway car plane stuck on the ground. Let's hope not.

FSS: Utah Arts Festival

Among other things I did this past weekend (mowed a lawn for the first time in at least 8 years, maybe more), I went downtown to the Utah Arts Festival for the first time. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but thought it might be something fun to do. And it was. And I'd probably go again next year. Certainly there were a fair number of eccentric folks down there (or coooooooks as my friend called them), but there was quite a bit of interesting art as well.

We managed to catch a 45 minute Improv set from some folks from The Off Broadway Theatre, and some Polynesian dancers, eat some greasy peesy, and check out a lot of art that was on display. Some of my favorites were some metal animals (moose, horse, etc) made from rusted farm implements, some more abstract stuff that was just patterns and colors, some good nature photography, and some old-fashioned looking signs painted on wooden boards. Anyway, made me think that I guess I do kind of appreciate art, even if I don't know much about how to make it, or art history. I definitely had some opinions of what I liked and didn't like and what kinds of things I might have purchased if I'd been in the market for some.

Just living life

I haven't blogged much lately, I know. I've thought about it, but just really haven't had much to say, I guess. I'm happy that it's not raining so much any more, though the forecast calls for rain today and tomorrow. Last week I hit up the Strawberry Days rodeo, and then tried to go to a demolition derby in Tooele that was postponed due to all the rain.



Aside from that I guess I'm just working and playing. After a couple month hiatus, I'm heading back into the dating scene with what feels like a pretty positive outlook. Not sure why, but I'm liking it for now.

Lots of vacation fun coming up in July (Seattle, St. George, Park City, Yellowstone), getting excited about that.

Also in the midst of a media overload.

• Checking out a lot of new music. Enjoyed the new-ish Gym Class Heroes album, some live Ben Folds, and some old school Rakim. This week, checking out the new-ish T.I., some other stuff. The library I live closest to now has a much better selection than the old one I used to frequent.
  

• Still slogging my way through Atlas Shrugged (the severe reduction in my solo trips to Gandolfos and Arbys has really cut down on the amount of time I spend reading), but picked up some "Classics" from Barnes & Noble yesterday (Buy 2 Get 1 Free right now) with some of the money on a gift card my parents gave me for graduation. Tale of Two Cities (because I wanted my own copy of one of my favorite books) and Vols. I & II of The Complete Sherlock Holmes (most of which I've probably already ready before). Might have to go back while the sale is on and pick up some more that I haven't already read -- something Dostoyevsky (Crime and Punishment? Brothers Karamazov?), Pride & Prejudice (Is it any good? or do girls just like it?), maybe Dante's Inferno? Pilgrim's Progress? Anyone got suggestions? Also snagged a Diabetic Cookbook off the bargain shelf. Considering attempting to cook real food for myself once a week or something like that.

• Got 3 used Xbox games that were also buy 2 get 1 free (Ninja Gaiden II, Bioshock, and Mass Effect), so that should keep me busy through the end of 2010, right?

Anyway, that's kind of an update of what I've been up to.

Just arrived in my inbox...

Congratulations on your graduation from the University of Utah. The following degree has been posted to your academic record:


Doctor of Philosophy

Biomedical Informatics


Your diploma has been mailed.

I guess that makes it official.

Seen this morning in the parking lot

Because Jesus is important, just not DALLAS COWBOYS IMPORTANT.

Personal Health Update

I know I haven't been great at blogging lately. Partly I think it's because the things that I spend most of my thoughts on aren't all that upbeat and chipper and I don't really think that things that frustrate me are things that I want to blog about. The mysterious side pain that prompted my initial doctor's visit in March where I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes continues to be vague and persistent, but has now been joined by a burning/tingling/itching sensation in the vicinity of my right scapula (shoulder blade). At my 2 month diabetes follow-up last week, I mentioned it to my PCP, but he suggested that that appointment was to follow-up on diabetes and that I ought to come back another time to talk about this new pain.

I did that yesterday, and he felt around back there and said that the pain I was having seemed to be in my rhomboid muscle, and suggested that I ought to have my right scapula x-rayed just to rule out any kind of bone cyst or anything. Got my x-rays done yesterday (sometimes its nice to work in a hospital), and everything looked fine, so now I've been referred for physical therapy. Not sure if I'm every going to be healthy enough to get some follow-up on the original side pain...and that's kind of what's been frustrating me lately.

That and dating. :)

In the spirit of ending on a more upbeat note, my diabetes follow-up went really well. After 2 months of watching my carb intake and trying to exercise more often, I lost 20 pounds, got my hemoglobin A1c down from 7.5 to 5.8 (7.0 is a common standard for "controlled" diabetes. 6.0 is the high end of "normal" ranges, for non-diabetics), lowered my cholesterol a bit, and really brought my triglycerides count down. Oh, and my blood pressure, which was pretty close to normal already, came down a bit, too. So for now, not going on any medication. Follow-up in 6 months.