So I know I no longer have been posting comments about every book that I read, but I figured it couldn't hurt to at least throw in a plug for the books (and I guess other things) that I like as come across them.
I recently finished Malcolm Gladwell's "What the Dog Saw", a collection of (I assume just some) of his essays from The New Yorker. And it was a super enjoyable read. The essays were usually between 15 and 30 pages and covered a broad range of topics. One about why there are so many kinds of mustard, but pretty much just one ketchup. One about whether maybe job interviews aren't so great at identifying good workers. The title essay about The Dog Whisperer. One about Ron Popeil. They're all long enough to cover a topic pretty well, but not so long that they get tedious. Definitely worth a read. I haven't read any of his other books ("The Tipping Point", "Blink", "Outliers") so I can't really compare or recommend those. But this one was definitely worth the 15 cents in library fines I paid for it.
#6: Something that excites you and fills you with joy.
Watching the Utes win
A good date
A fun concert
Having a fun conversation
Hearing a favorite song
Those are some that came to mind, but also this prompt reminded me of this list that I initially made when I was a missionary, and then added a little to afterward, that is still pretty accurate (car CD players have lost some of their awesomeness in the last 12 years).
This was an interesting idea for me to think about. Because first I had to think about whether or not my life actually had balance. Given that its not something I spend a lot of time thinking about (balance), can I safely assume that my life is in balance?
So to think about what gives me balance (assuming I have it), means looking at areas of my life that are out of balance, either neglected or overly emphasized, or at least that I might have a natural tendency to overly emphasize or neglect.
And doing that, it seems like the area that I'm most in danger of being out of balance might be a tendency to be very self-centered. Not that I think I'm an ego-maniac or anything, just being single, my own self tends to be the main focus of my attention. And I could probably do better at finding opportunities to serve others. Just sometimes when there's no family, and few obvious opportunities through church to serve (my home teaching families are particularly adept at not saying they don't want us to come over, but somehow managing to avoid us month after month), its a little more work to find ways to serve.
So, all that said, I guess I would say that when I do get opportunities to serve at church, be it taking Christmas treats around to our home teaching families (they can't stop us from at least coming to the door with tangerines!), or even just helping out in the Elders Quorum with service and activities. (This quarter's activity: having the guys are coming over to watch a Jazz game. They're married, ok? I'm sure this is more excitement than most of them have had in years.)
So that's at least one thing that give my life some balance, even if it is still probably still out of balance in that sense.
#4: Something that is part of your routine that you enjoy
In thinking about "my routine", it was kind of hard to narrow it down to things that really felt "routine", you know? Like I enjoy taking myself out for fast food before I go grocery shopping (never want to shop on an empty stomach, right?), but that only happens a couple times a month, so I don't know if that qualifies as routine.
But after thinking for a couple days, I guess the most routine thing that I enjoy the most, is probably just my commute. I know, I know, if I could work at the OTHER hospital that's much closer to home, I'd save myself time, gas money, and who knows what else. But as long as I'm working downtown, I'm actually pretty happy with my 25 minute drive each way. I read something once that said that people actually prefer to have a bit of a commute. Gives you some time to switch from "home" mode to "work" mode and back again, or something like that.
In any case, for me, it generally means quality time with my iPod. :) Either catching up on my podcasts (an episode of PTI fits perfectly into one half of my commute) or listening to whatever new music I got from the library this week. (Salt Lake County has a service that lets you download 3 free songs every week).
And after coming home last night on the freeway (I swung through downtown before heading home), I was reminded of how much I enjoy driving on 7th East. None of the stop and go of the freeway, and almost as fast overall if I'm not going through downtown with all the traffic lights. Pretty steady flow of traffic, not nearly as stressful as taking the freeway, in my opinion.
Finally an easy one. :) As opposed to having a hard time coming up with things I'm looking forward to or things I regret, things I struggle with seem easy to come by. Where to begin? :)
I struggle with not going to bed as early as I ought to. I usually feel
like I could go to bed at ten, but if I miss my window, then I seem to
find my second wind and end up staying up til 11:30 or 12. Or later if I
find something interesting to do in the meantime.
I struggle with wanting to be "out there", being social, so that I can
meet people to date. Its not that I don't like social interaction, but
some of these events just don't seem very conducive to meeting people
and yet sometimes I worry that if I don't go then I won't be able to
meet new people that I'm interested in dating, and I'll be stuck with
blind dates with people who I'm definitely not interested in.
I struggle with eating more than I need to. Not that I "pig out" often. Just between the diabetes and a desk job, I really don't need to eat all that much. Even when I am doing a good job of regular exercise.
I struggle with making time to read the scriptures every day. I do pretty good most of the time, but I'm sure I would do better if I could make myself get up earlier and have a dedicated spot for it in my day. As it is now, I just have to make it a priority when I get home from work.
I struggle with dating, in a variety of ways. I still get nervous to call girls that I'm interested in and ask them out. Even in the instances where they DO go out with me (and certainly not every girl that I call does that), I then worry about whether or not they're interested in going out a second time. When they DO seem interested, then I worry that I'm going to end up not being interested in them for some reason. So I struggle with continuing to be optimistic and hopeful.
I struggle with staying on task at work. When I have things clearly laid out for myself to work on, its pretty easy, but when I finish a project, or I am waiting to hear back from someone (which happens a lot) I am not the best at making myself think of what else I could be working on.
I struggle with feelings of loneliness, even when I know there are a
lot of people who care about me. Just would like to have a best friend
who won't eventually get married or move away or whatever, a.k.a. a
wife. :)
I struggle with buying anything that costs more than $20. My work pays me well and I can afford most of the things I would want to buy for myself, but after a decade of being a full-time student, I guess I just got used to being conservative with my money.
I struggle to find time to listen to all of my podcasts and new music. I love my Bill Simmons podcasts, and I love PTI, and I love This American Life, and I love the Slate Political Gabfest, but I only commute about 50 minutes a day, so to keep up with everything, I have to find other times during the week to listen (sometimes when I work out, but I've been riding the bike so much lately, and talk radio just doesn't cut it on the bike)
I struggle with finding things to work toward. Now that I'm done with school and into a "career" job, sometimes life can get to feel like its kind of the same old thing every day. Go to work. Come home. Exercise. Read the scriptures. Find something fun to do for a couple hours. Go to bed. Last year's running kick came in part from a desire to have something to work toward. Another thing I've thought about doing is taking piano lessons. But I don't really have a piano. Guess I could learn with a keyboard (I think there's one laying around our house somewhere), but somehow that seems kinda lame. :)
I guess that's probably a long enough list of the things I struggle with for one day. :)
So, I think I've mentioned recently that I was experiencing some issues with my left knee, that brought an end to my goal to run a complete 5K last year. Back in October I went to see a Sports Medicine doctor and he took an ultrasound and found evidence of some scar tissue in my patellar tendon. I've been going to physical therapy for a while and doing some exercises with the the hope of breaking up that scar tissue and replacing it with healthy tissue, but after a couple months of that and not seeing any real improvement in my pain, the doctor recommended that we take more drastic action.
The more drastic action he recommended was something called Platelet-Rich Plasma therapy (PRP). Its a technique that I've heard the last few years in reference to NBA players, so I at least had heard of it. Basically what it consists of is taking some of the patient's blood, centrifuging it to increase the percentage of platelets and then injecting that platelet-rich plasma into the patient's damaged tissue. The expected benefits of the injections are two-fold. First, the hope is that the injections will break up the scar tissue, and secondly the platelets in the plasma are expected to aid in the growth of new healthy cells.
In addition to extolling the benefits, my doctor also made it clear that it's not exactly a mild treatment. He told me the pain can be pretty intense. Having had it done twice himself, I appreciated his first-hand testimony. After some discussion, I decided to take his advice and see if this new-fangled treatment could help me get back to running and jumping like I used to (not that I was ever an olympic athlete by any stretch of the imagination).
My sweet mother was kind enough to come and get me and take me up to Bountiful where I was having the procedure done. The first step was drawing the blood, thankfully something that I've never had much problems with. The gal drawing my blood asked how my veins are and I told her that I've never had any problems getting blood drawn, so if she had any problems it must be her fault, no pressure. ;) For some reason she felt compelled to show me the larger than normal tube she needed to fill up, maybe six or eight inches long and the diameter of a quarter. So definitely more than I usually get drawn for my semi-annual lab tests. Regardless, there wasn't really any problem getting my blood and then I went back out to the waiting room to hang out with my mom while they got it processed and ready to put back in me.
About 20 minutes later, they called me back in. They had me lay down on the table, and the doctor gave me a small injection to numb the skin over my tendon where they'd be injecting the PRP. A few seconds later he inserted the needle and asked if I felt anything. I didn't and said as much, wondering if the pain he'd talked about was just bluster. He said, oh, well I'm just into the skin, now I'm going to inject the blood into your tendon. And then he did. And wow, it was definitely an intense sensation. I don't think that tendons are generally made to have things injected into them. So much pressure. I asked him if my leg was going to explode. He chuckled and said no, but that that was a typical description of the feeling.
After just a few minutes his work was done. He slapped a band-aid over the injection site and told me I could take as long as I wanted to lay on the table until I felt like getting up and going. While the pain didn't get any worse, it didn't really improve for quite a while. I hobbled around the office to ask a couple questions from the staff and then headed out to the lobby, so my mom could drive me home.
I had originally planned on meeting some friends for dinner later that night, but at that point I was wondering if I'd be able to leave the house at all. The pain was pretty constant, in a way that made it hard to concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes at a time. I quickly discovered that there were better and worse ways to go up and down the stairs. :) I gathered up some reading materials and set up a home base in our living room so I wouldn't have to keep wandering around to get things. The doctor had stressed that I shouldn't just sit still all night and that I should make sure to move around a bit every ten minutes, despite the pain, as it would be helpful to keep it moving. So I forced myself to get up every ten minutes or so and at least walk around the room and flex my leg back and forth a little.
Unfortunately, it also became apparent that somewhere in the house there was a smoke detector with a dead battery. I had to wander around the house for a while before finally locating the one that needed a replacement. Thankfully it was one I could reach just with a chair and wouldn't need a ladder to replace. I was a little nervous about climbing up on a chair, but it turned out to not be as big of a deal as I feared.
After a few hours of taking it easy (but remembering to move around a bit) I actually decided that I could probably handle driving myself to dinner, and I did. Wasn't 100% comfortable, but I was glad I was able to go.
My biggest fear was about the night, both that I'd have a hard time getting comfortable to sleep, and that after a night of not moving that I'd be pretty sore in the morning. Thankfully neither of those were really a problem. I found a couple different positions that were comfortable for sleeping, and this morning I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was at least no sorer than the night before. Been taking it easy today for the most part, once again setting up my home base in the living room, complete with my old school monster of a laptop, on which I'm cranking out this blog while watching the 49ers-Saints playoff game.
In the end, or at least at whatever point I'm currently at, it wasn't a horrible procedure to have done. I'm hopeful that it will make a real difference in my knee and that I won't have to have it done again any time soon. :)
#2: Something you regret not having done last year
As I look back at 2011, and think about what I regret not having done, its hard for me to come up with any major regrets. I'm sure that I made plenty of mistakes, but most of them I'm probably not even aware of making, and other things I regret, like the fact that my knee is so screwed up that I'm having to get needles stuck into later this week, are the results of decisions that I don't regret, like trying to start a habit of running regularly. I probably ought to regret some of the times I ate at Chick-fil-A instead of making myself a sandwich, but their nuggets are just so delicious, its hard to find any remorse for that. :)
Given that I'm feeling a little bit like I'm a man without a social network, I sometimes regret not having gone to check out the singles ward that many of my friends were attending before the reorganization of singles wards throughout the valley, but I don't regret continuing to work with the Elders Quorum presidency that I was serving in at the time.
I guess this is a difficult question for me to answer, but since its my blog, I'll say that I tried. Maybe you can suggest things I ought to regret in the comments. :)
I always hate to rush into blogging again after posting my Christmas Card, because I like having it at the top of my blog when people come to visit, but at this point I imagine that anyone who wanted to see it has seen it, and the ones who have come back are probably tired of seeing it at this point. :)
Anyway, I feel like this blog has become mainly a collection of photos from when I go somewhere, and don't get me wrong, I really like that aspect of it. But I also want to do a little more with it. What kind of more? I'm not entirely sure, but I thought it might be good to just do some writing here from time to time. I sometimes see people doing "30 Day Challenges" or something like that, and I don't really feel like I need to write for 30 days straight, but think it might be fun to find some writing prompts from some of those and maybe shoot for 30 days of essays over the course of some larger number of days. :) This site has a bunch of prompts that I thought were interesting to think about, so I'm going to start with that list and work my way down. So without further ado:
#1: Something you're looking forward to this year
Right off the bat, this seems harder than it ought to be. Having finished school and being in a job that's fairly stable, there generally aren't any big things to look forward to these days. I mean, sure I'd love to look forward to falling in love and getting married this year, but I guess that I feel like there's things you hope for, but they don't really count as things to look forward to, per se. And a year is a long time to be looking forward to anyway. I really haven't done much planning past the next couple months.
All that said, there are a number of things that I'm looking forward to this year:
-Going to visit Julie in Arizona in February (good company AND good weather)
-George's family coming to visit sometime
-Seeing Wicked in August
-Getting my knee better again and getting back to non-bike exercising (my tailbone is not a big fan of riding the bike)
I'm sure I could come up with other things, but I'm feeling like these don't HAVE to be super long essays, so I'm just going to leave it like that.
These Christmas Card blog posts have become something that I probably look forward to more than anyone else does. Why? I guess taking time to look back at the last 12 months and see where life has taken me. Also, as I get older and time seems to fly past faster and faster each year, looking back over the course of twelve months allows me to realize that there really was a lot that happened and that I didn't just blink and another year had gone by. Would you believe I wrote the first one of these five years ago? Back when some people didn't even HAVE blogs yet? :)
Just by way of updating the major details of my life, it doesn't seem like TOO much has changed this year. I am still living in Murray, almost 3 years in the same house, which I still love living in, though I DID move down to the basement this year, so I guess that's a bit of change. Especially in terms of temperature in the winter (brrr!) and summer (ahhh!) Still single. Still done with school and still working for Intermountain Healthcare. But I AM a year older, so I guess that's different, right? :)
As usual traveling was a big part of the "highlights" of my year (went from Washington state to Washington DC and from Hawaii to Florida and back to Hawaii, and slept in 9 different states plus the District of Columbia), but I wanted to break up the travelogues and photos with various other non-travel highlights of the year, so watch out for those as you go.
Definitely as I get older, I feel like memory is not what it once was, and January was a long time ago, but as best as I can recall, with the help of my blog and pictures I've taken, I did not travel anywhere in January.
In February, Alicia and I talked our way into spending President's Day weekend in St. George with Laci's family. The hope was to get away from the cold and find somewhere warm, but apparently it's still pretty chilly in St. George in February. We did go on a neat hike in Red Rock, and got to see Zions blanketed in snow and ice. Related blog post. More photos on Flickr.
In March, we had a wonderful family vacation to Hawaii. Given that in the months since then, I've suddenly become the only one of my siblings left in Utah, it was really nice to have the whole family together, and to do so many fun things. Perhaps of everything that happened, the most notable was that Ben opened his mission call. To Hawaii of all places. He headed to the MTC in early June. More on that later. I wrote a whole series of posts on this trip, that can be found here. Lots of photos here.
I used to write reviews of every book I finished, here on the blog, but at some point this year, I got tired of doing that, so I stopped. I do still try to keep up the list in the righthand column of what I've read and what I'm reading up to date, in case anyone is wondering. In addition to the 14 books I've finished so far this year (I imagine I'll finish at least one more before the end of the year), I also read a fair number of graphic novels (aka comic books) that I don't generally deem blog-worthy. :) Of the books I finished this year, my favorites were "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis (author of Moneyball and The Blind Side) about the crash of the housing economy, and "The Accidental Billionaires" by Ben Mezrich about the founding of Facebook. There was also a chapter in Dmitri Martin's "This is a Book" about an anti-cat calendar ("Cat-astrophe") that was fantastic. :)
Some other favorites from this year:
Movie: X-Men: First Class
TV Show: Parks & Recreation/Breaking Bad
Song: "Party Rock Anthem" by LMFAO
Album: "The Head and the Heart" by The Head and The Heart
Video Game: Batman Arkham Asylum
April was another non-travel month, which was fine. Good chance to rest up prior to what turned out to be a very busy summer.
In May, I made trips to two places I'd never been before. Both in the same week! I went to Orlando for a Public Health Informatics conference where, together with one of our collaborators at the state health department, I gave a presentation on our partnership in developing the death certificate tool I've been working on for the last 3 years. Now in pilot testing! (yay!) For the last 8 months. (boo!) I was only there for a couple quick days, and didn't make it to any of the Disney parks, but did go to Downtown Disney one night. Blog post. Flickr.
Part of the reason I was only there for a couple days was that I had to hurry and get back to Utah so that I could drive to eastern Washington for my good friend Jon's wedding. Alicia, Matt & Marti, and I loaded into Alicia's Murano and drove to the Tri-Cities area and back over the course of just 3 days. I think we literally spent as much time in the car as we did in Washington. :) But it was great to be there for Jon's wedding and to see some of the country that I'd never seen before. And we were even home in time for Memorial Day. Which I don't remember anything about. Maybe I spent it being lazy and recovering from a hard week of traveling (Florida to Washington!). Read more. See more
June was another stay-at-home month, but with plenty going on. Ben entered the MTC on June 8th, and I was lucky enough to be able to be around for most of the festivities surrounding that event. They've changed the MTC a bit since I was there, and the dropoff process is pretty quick now. You just pull up to a designated spot on the curb, a missionary comes to help with luggage, you get a quick hug and that's it. So long. Sayonara. See you in 2 years. Probably less emotional than the old way, and maybe that's for the best. It was nice having Ben in Salt Lake for a year before he left. We managed to go out for dinner a couple times, and hit a Jazz game while he was at the U. And a couple times Natalie was even able to come up from Provo for a "sibling dinner" (Sorry we didn't invite you George!). And as it turned out, she would also be heading out for warmer climes less than a month later as she got a reporting job in El Paso and moved at the end of June. So in the span of a month I went from being one of three kids here in Utah, to being the lone representative here in the state. Things definitely can change quickly. In many ways, its been fun to have Ben out on a mission, and to see how much he's changed and grown already (or maybe we just know more what he's thinking now that he writes us an email every week). Anyway, definitely makes me appreciate the times that we can get together as a family more now that we're spread out.
I was lucky enough to catch three concerts that I quite enjoyed this year. The first, in April, was "The Head and The Heart" at Kilby Court, and I have to say, they were fantastic, and I can't imagine them not doing big things. They're a folky rock group and their debut album has so many great songs. My friend Emily, who has her own show on KRCL (in addition to being a geneticist!), recommended them and hooked me up with free tickets.
In August, Jeff and Sica Glauser and I went down to Pioneer Park (as yet un"Occupy"ed) for a free Lupe Fiasco concert. The opener was not really to my liking and the free nature of the concert led to a lot of people who I wanted to punch when they tried to crowd in front of us, but it was a fun show. Always like me some Lupe.
Finally in November, I once again got to see They Might Be Giants, this time with ex-programmer/still-nerd Jonathan Coulton. I convinced my fellow nerd, Randall, to come down from Ogden and go with me. Definitely a fun night. Would definitely pay to see TMBG again.
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3rd Quarter: Part I
That's right. July-September was so jam-packed with stuff that it needs to be broken up into two parts!
Speaking of getting family together, George and Kimi and the kids (including new addition Cole!) were all able to come for the 4th of July holiday, and Natalie was able to hold off starting her new job enough to come back and party with us. Among other things, I ran the Ray Barrus 5K with mom, George, and Natalie. We watched the parade. Ate BBQ. Threw snaps with the kids. Watched fireworks at the park. Definitely a fantastic 4th. More words. More pictures.
Our 4th of July celebration would have been sufficient for any normal July, but this year, July just kept right on rolling. A week or so after the 4th, Melissa invited me to come camping down in Moab, so after a few years or really wanting to go down there and check out Arches National Park, I finally made it. And I was so glad that I went. Not only did my friend Garrett find us a campsite with a phenomenal view, but Arches was also fantastic. Delicate Arch definitely lived up to the hype, and our day long hike through Devils Garden was really cool, too. I'm sure there's plenty that I've yet to see, so I hope that I get down there again soon. For those wholove to read. For those who just like to look at pictures.
The very next week, right after Arches, was my 3rd annual "Sweat running down the back of my knees at Tuacahn" St. George trip with most of the same great friends as the other two times. Once again we hit up Sand Hollow for some cliff jumping and swimming, and despite the massive ear/head ache that I managed to acquire in the process, it was still a fantastically fun trip. We jokingly told Kellen and Mel that they can't come next year now that they're married and Mel didn't seem to find our joke too funny. Words with friends. Pictures with friends.
For
nearly the last 3 years Type II Diabetes has been a part of my life,
and I guess it's both good and bad that I'm not longer as scared of
having my legs amputated or going blind anytime soon. Good in the sense
that my blood sugars continue to be in a "controlled" range (HbA1c's
for the year: 5.1 and 6.1), and all of my tests have been fine. Bad in
the sense that I'm not quite as motivated as I once was to exercise
several times a week and be pretty strict with my diet. Wasn't thrilled
to see my A1c go from 5.1 to 6.1 in 6 months, even though both numbers
are below where I'm need to be. Hopefully by March I can get back
down a bit toward where I was before.
For somewhat non-health related reasons (kinda just wanted a goal to work toward) I did make a goal for myself to run a complete 5K (i.e, no walking) this year and made steady progress toward
that goal (ran nearly all of two 5Ks, my times were 30:03 and 28:40)
until my knee decided that it wasn't as excited about that goal as the
rest of me. So the last couple months I've been doing my best to take
care of my knee and hopefully get back to where I can at least play
volleyball a couple times a week and do plenty of low impact work on the
elliptical machine. :)
Guess what? We're STILL not done with July! The NEXT week after St. George, I went up to Lava Hot Springs, in what also seems to be becoming an annual tradition of camping at the trout haven and then risking life and limb tubing in the Portneuf River. Amazingly, after 3 trips down, I had managed to avoid even a single scar (Just ask me and I'd be happy to show you one of the two I've got there on previous trips. The second one...well it's a little more personal). So at that point, I decided to not press my luck further and call it a day.
At this point it was finally August. And I managed to stay home for a couple weekends in a row. Which actually was pretty easy. I had plenty of catching up on life maintenance things (laundry, grocery shopping, oil changes, etc) to do, and it was nice to have a Saturday or two for recharging after a crazy July. After taking most of August off from traveling (there was a quick overnight road trip to Bear Lake in there somewhere -- sorry no photos), we sent the summer off with a bang. My roommate Brandon needed to take some vacation before his no-vacation season started at work, so with a little help from myself and others, he put together a week packed with road tripping. We started with quick trip to California. That's right, quick. Meaning we left our house on Sunday morning, drove to Los Angeles, hit Disneyland on Monday, Knotts Berry Farm on Tuesday, then back to Vegas on Tuesday night, and then the rest of the way home on Wednesday. Crazy, right? But also tons of fun. My friend Val, who I probably hadn't seen in person in at least 7 years, was kind enough to host us at her house and even come with us to Disneyland. We had good times playing Cash Cab on Brandon's iPod while we drove, and by the time we had our late dinner in Vegas Tuesday night, I think we were all a little punchy. I know we definitely laughed until our sides hurt that night. More Cali photos.
After taking a day and a half off to recover (and by recover, I mean, go to work Thursday and Friday), we (Brandon and I, plus 7 others that we traded Julie for) were back on the road, this time heading north to Jackson Hole (another first). Thankfully I did not have to drive. (We took my car to California and I drove the whole way there and back by choice. Oh and another first! My first speeding ticket.) We spent the first night in Rexburg, and then in the morning drove the rest of the way to Jackson. We had a fantastic time rafting on the Snake River and enjoyed the dinner and musical stylings of the Bar J Wranglers in the evening. The next day we drove up past the Tetons and into Yellowstone and took a whirlwind tour of the south half of the park (same half I saw on my first trip) and then back again. And then we drove home on Monday, and I swore to never take another road trip. :) Ok, not true, but it was nice to be home again and settle in for fall and football without any more road trips planned. All the blog posts from my crazy Week o' Vacationing are here. Wyoming photos here.
As the year started, I was beginning to wonder if I ought to consider switching out of the singles ward I was attending in Holladay, partly because I didn't actually live in the boundaries, nor was I within their official age range, and partly because I sometimes felt a lot older than most of the ward. But as I was serving in the Elders Quorum Presidency I didn't exactly feel right about just cutting out for my own personal reasons. Then in late April there was a reorganization of all the singles wards in the valley and it seemed like the right time to be moving on, though it was definitely hard to leave behind my friends there, and especially the fantastic men I served in the presidency with.
After vacillating for a couple months between the "mid-singles" ward (31-45) and the regular or "family" ward for my neighborhood, I eventually decided to try the family ward for a while, and that's where I'm at now. Fun to be in a ward with kids again (the primary program was one of my favorite weeks), and while I'm not exactly meeting girls to date there, I have made friends and have been able to serve in the Elders Quorum (shocker!) as one of two guys over activities and service coordination. And of course, church is still church, whether you're in a room full of single people, or a room full of crying kids and old people. The gospel is still true and I still learn a little bit each week about how I can live better.
In October, I traveled to Washington, D.C. for the Annual Fall Symposium of the American Medical Informatics Association. Always great to catch up with friends from school that I don't see much any more, especially the ones who live out of town. I also took an evening to go down to the mall with an old friend from Salt Lake who lives out there to check out the new Martin Luther King memorial, and eat dinner at the famous Old Ebbitt Grill. Blog summary. More photos.
And if you're a regular reader of this blog, you already know that I just barely finished wrapping up a discussion of my most recent trip, a Thanksgiving week trip back to Hawaii with my parents to hang out with George's family. Certainly less of a "Hawaii" vacation, and more of a "family" vacation, that just happened to take place in Hawaii. Yes, I know this means we're probably spoiled, but it was nice to relax for a while and get plenty of quality time in with family. All the details. Just the pretty pictures.
I always like to include this little summary of my dating life, if for no other reason then to let the world know that not all single LDS men are not dating, despite whatever you might have heard to the contrary. :) Last year I was lucky enough to get a bit of a break from the crazy world of dating, inasmuch as I was dating the same person for most of the year. I was not quite so blessed this year, but I certainly had a lot of great dating experiences. I was able to go on 41 dates (and counting, the year's not over yet). Which is definitely a personal best for a year when I didn't have a steady girlfriend. Given that I stopped going to a singles ward halfway through the year, I feel glad to know that it doesn't have to mean that I can't still have opportunities to meet new people to go out with. There were even a couple great girls that were willing to take a chance on me for a month or two, and though things didn't work out, for a variety of reasons, I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to get to know them, and myself, better in the process.
As I look back on all that's happened in the last year, I am truly grateful for the many wonderful people in my life, and the many wonderful opportunities I have to travel and see so many amazing things. I'm grateful to have a good job in a time when many are still struggling, and above all grateful at this Christmas season to know that our Savior lives and knows and loves each of us. Wherever you may be, I wish you a Merry Christmas!
Previous years' Christmas cards can be found here.
I know I've already covered all of my recent Hawaiian Thanksgiving, but as a coda of sorts, I wanted to share the story of my redeye flight home. Generally I am pretty good at sleeping on an airplane. When I went on my cruise, I think I was the only one of my friends who got a decent night's sleep on our redeye to Miami, and I've redeyed home from Hawaii at least once before. Generally the hardest part of it is turning down free inflight movies in favor of getting some rest.
Unfortunately this trip was not to be so. My parents were in two seats together on one side of the plane, and I had a window seat more or less across from them on the opposite side (2-3-2 seat arrangement). I got a window seat with the idea that it would be easier to lean against the wall and sleep than to just sleep sitting up in my chair. I even brought my sweatshirt with me to use as a makeshift pillow, given that the brillo pad airplane pillows aren't exactly made for sweet dreams.
When I got to my seat there was an Asian businessman seated in the aisle seat next to mine, and we exchanged a minimum of pleasantries as I got seated. I saw he was trying to turn on his reading light and I showed him that you have to do it now using the touchscreen on the seatback in front of you. His light still didn't turn on, and he expressed some concern because he was planning to do "a lot of reading" during the flight and wouldn't be able to do without the overhead reading light. He flagged down one of the flight attendants to explain that his light wasn't turning on, and she said that it could just be because the cabin lights were on, and that if it didn't work once we were in the air, they could look into a solution.
Once the plane was loaded, we pulled away from the jetway and were taxiing toward the runway when someone hit their attendant call button a few times, and a few minutes later, we were taxiing back to the gate due to a medical emergency. Being no stranger to on-plane medical emergencies, I was able to look at this delay with the silver-lining view that "Hey at least we weren't in the air already" and "At least I don't have to worry about making a connecting flight in Los Angeles." Because both of those complicating factors can really make a slight delay into a big mess. We parked at the gate for a bit and some medical personnel came on, and it wasn't entirely clear what else happened besides that. I didn't see any passengers come down my aisle, but I wasn't paying too close attention.
At some point, while we were waiting they enabled the movies and I found something to watch while waiting to take off. Meanwhile Asian businessman was still unable to turn on his overhead reading light, but was able to get some reading done with the cabin lighting. As far as I could tell, what he was reading was some sort of local Hawaiian business newsletter, something like Pacific Business News that looked like the Murray newsletter that gets dropped off at our house once a month or something. Like a small newspaper.
Eventually our flight did take off, and they dimmed the cabin lights. When his overhead light still did not turn on, the flight attendants sadly informed the passengers that they would need to reboot the computer system that runs the seatback systems, meaning everyone would have to restart their movies. They did this (FYI its a Linux system), and eventually everything was up and running again. Except for Mr. Pacific Business News's reading light. So they rebooted the system again. Finally, his light was working. Oh joy! :)
At this point I was pretty much ready to get some sleep (it was probably getting close to midnight Hawaii time), but I was surprised to find out that the overhead reading light is actually REALLY bright. Ugh. I struggled for quite some time to fall asleep, thinking that eventually my seatmate would finish up his reading and catch a few z's himself. I eventually took some sly glances to see what was so important that he needed to be catching up on it in the middle of the night. As best as I could tell, he was meticulously poring over bankruptcy notices and tax notifications and other really small print items, the back pages of the newsletter. And then I noticed they weren't even recent newsletters. The one he was working on then was nearly two months old!
In a desperate attempt to get some sleep I ended up putting my sweatshirt over my head to block out the glare of the megaspotlight shining down on us, and tried that for a while. Not that Senor Asian Business took any notice of my struggle for sleep. He just kept on staring at his newsletter. Until, what's that?! he nodded off himself. I wasn't sure if he was really sleeping or just resting his eyes for a moment or something, but after a minute or two, I decided he really must be asleep. So I carefully reached over to his touchscreen and turned off his reading light! :) All those years of sneakily writing on sleepy classmates' notes in college was really paying off. I then tried to hurry and get to sleep, but sadly I did not find dreamland before he reawakened and turned his light on again. At least two more times during the night, when I caught him dozing, I turned off his light. And always he would wake up again and turn it back on.
Eventually I did fall asleep for a while. Maybe an hour or two. At one point I awoke to the sound of him ripping out newspaper articles that he had found fascinating, or perhaps were destined for the "My Trip to America" pages in his scrapbook. I'll never know.
When I finally gave up on sleep for good, I roused myself to find that he'd given up on reading up on the best of last month's Pacific Business bankruptcy notices, but certainly had not given up on his overhead light. He'd pulled out an ipad from somewhere and was meandering his way through the settings screen. Not sure what he was looking for, but it was immediately apparent that his iPad was not in "Airplane Mode". I considered calling the flight attendant to complain about our security, but worried I might not have the best ground to stand on, given my secretive light turn offs. It seemed like maybe he was trying to connect to the internet and frustrated by the absence of free in-flight wi-fi. And despite the iPad's built-in lighting, the cursed reading light continued to shine down on us.
We landed safely in Salt Lake (despite any danger presented by a non-airplane mode iPad) and we got our bags and headed for home. And I did get some sleep that morning, and eventually caught up on my sleep. But I just wanted to share this cautionary tale for the benefit of my readers. If the guy sitting next to you on a redeye informs you early on that he's brought a lot of reading material, you might try to find someone to trade seats with you. If not, you might be in for a long night. :)
The big day had finally arrived. Thanksgiving was here! Food had been preparing since the day before, and it still had a few hours to go in the morning, so we strapped a kayak to the roof the van and cruised over to Kaneohe Bay for some sea kayaking. One of George's coworkers (his boss maybe?) at the clinic has a place there with a nice launching spot, and also another kayak that they were kind enough to let us use.
Kaneohe Bay
Mom was a little nervous about the whole thing, probably after watching us tip over a bunch of times trying to get in at Bellows Beach in March, so she got put on the wider, more stable kayak with Lucy and me. As we were loading up in the shallows, and there weren't really any breaking waves, it was easy to get in and start paddling out. George and Dad took Austin and Elise with them in a longer, slightly more narrow kayak.
As Mom was pretty nervous, I just told her to sit tight and I'd handle the paddling. Lucy was having a good time up in front, getting splashed occasionally. George and Dad cruised out a little farther given that they had two paddlers instead of just one. Eventually they turned around and came back toward us. We were about ready to turn around, and they offered to come help us make sure we didn't tip over as we turned around (probably the most likely time to tip over is when you're perpendicular to the waves). We managed to get turned around just fine, just taking it easy, but as they were attempting to come back and help us, somehow they tipped over their kayak, dumping all four of them out in the ocean. The little kids were obviously shaken up, but as everyone had their life jackets on, no one was in any serious danger. They got the kids back up on the kayak, and then swam it back to a shallow spot where they could also get in and eventually made it back to where we had launched from. The kids were still a little traumatized, but after a few minutes of hanging out on the shore in the sun, they were back to their happy selves.
Fully recovered :)
Kimi showed up around that time, and her George went for a little paddle out and back, and then we headed back to the house.
Our Thanksgiving feast was delicious. We had two kinds of turkey, one cooked conventionally, and one cooked underground in a Hawaiian imu oven. I could never remember which was which by the time I sat down at the table, but they were both really good. We had good rolls, and mashed potatoes and gravy, but I think my favorite dish was Kimi's sweet potatoes. They pretty much tasted like candy. Really good stuff. We ate until we were all stuffed and then took a few hours off before eventually getting back together for dessert. Kimi had made 3 different kinds of pie/cheesecake/goodness. I didn't try them all, but the ones I had were also really great. It was Austin's birthday a few days later, so we celebrated that night opening presents and singing happy birthday, while we ate our dessert.
I didn't really take too many photos of the Thanksgiving festivities,
but Kimi got some great ones from the day, that you can see here.
Sadly this was our last night together, and over the course of the day we were slowly working on getting packed up as well. Eventually the time came for us to say our farewells and the Hawaii Tripps came out and sat on their front wall and waved goodbye to us. Until next time...Aloha!
Wednesday seems like it must have been a fairly laidback day as I don't remember much from the morning. Probably more playing with the kids. Mancala with Elise or Connect 4 with Austin. All with their own sets of rules of course. :)
Around noon, Lucy had her school program, so we all walked over to watch it. Rather than do a Thanksgiving-themed program, for whatever reason her teacher had chosen a program about a garden. With aliens. Who need fuel for their spaceship. And compost happens to be their fuel. Also there were some tabloid reporters who offered cash for alien photos. Didn't quite get me in the Thanksgiving mood, but not too painful to watch. :) Lucy was one of the gardeners and had a few lines and a couple songs that she sang with the other gardeners.
The highlight of the program came after it was over: Hawaiian potluck! :) So many good things to choose from. I even got to try some chicken katsu, which Ben says is one of his favorite dishes. As we ate, the kids got to play on the playground, so it was fun to watch that as well. Austin was pleased with himself and being able to climb all the way up to the big slide and go down.
Austin "swinging like a monkey!"
Crossing over to the big slide
Eventually we made our way back to the house, where most of the adults busied themselves with food preparation for the big meal the next day. I have to say that I don't think I did much of anything to help with Thanksgiving dinner. What I did instead, I can't really remember.
At the very end of the night, George and Dad and I watched Captain America. Well Dad and I watched it. George fell asleep at some point. I thought it was good, but maybe not as good as I'd been led to believe. I think I'm keeping X-Men: First Class as my favorite superhero movie of the summer.
We decided that on Tuesday we would (eventually) head up to the north shore and see if the big winter surfing contests were any good. One of the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing contests, the Reef Hawaiian Pro at Haleiwa, was going on, and while they had waited about 10 days without any decent waves, they finally started some surfing on Monday. While it wasn't the big waves they expect on north shore, it was at least enough for them to get some surfing in. So having read that report we figured 1) it might be worth checking out, and 2) might not be crazy crowded as the waves weren't as good as they are some years.
But before we went north, we made a stop down in Kailua at Boots & Kimos, a restaurant I've had recommended to me by a few friends. Apparently my friends aren't the only ones who've heard about it, as it was a 45 minute wait for breakfast. Eventually we did eat though and the macadamia nut syrup was pretty delicious (or "onolicous" if you prefer). After we ate, we headed on up to Haleiwa, only stopping once for damage control on the kiddos.
We got to Haleiwa around 11 or so I think, and we able to find parking by the big grassy park near the beach, and walked over to where the surf contest was going on. The contest worked as follows: 4 surfers would go out at a time and they'd have like 20 minutes or so to get their best surfing in. The 2 best surfers then advance on. I'm not sure what constitutes good surfing, nor do I know any of the surfers. But it was still fun to watch them catch waves and do some cool moves on said waves. We took lots of pictures even though they were far enough away that my little point-and-shoot doesn't really do justice. Here are some of my favorites:
There also were a few turtles hanging around near the shore right in front of us, and you could often see them below the water and every few minutes or so, one would poke his head up. I waited for a while and managed to get at least one shot of one with its head up:
After an hour or two of watching the surfers, Kimi loaded the kids up and headed home to be there when Lucy got out of school, and Dad, Mom and I hit Matsumotos for a shave ice. We also stopped at BYU-Hawaii on the way back and eventually found the bookstore in the hopes of finding a DVD that Ben was looking for and had heard could only be found, at least in Hawaii, there. They were sold out though. So after a bit of looking around, we headed back to Kaneohe, with a quick pit stop at McDonalds for a late lunch.
Hang Loose!
That night, George and Kimi had arranged a babysitter for the kids, and the grown ups went out for a fancy dinner at a place called Haleiwa Joe's. (But in Kaneohe, not Haleiwa). It was a very nice place, with a fantastic patio kind of eating area, overlooking a pond and some lush greenery. The food was great too. I got a chipotle pork chop. We had some good shrimp for appetizers, and even got dessert. Overall a great dinner and great atmosphere. I didn't take my camera, so you'll just have to imagine it, I guess. :)
Update: Looks like Kimi posted a few pictures from our day on their blog.
Monday morning, mom and Kimi had signed up for a class at a botanical garden over in Honolulu somewhere, so Dad and I got babysitting duties for the morning (minus Lucy who had to go to school).
Hanging out with Coley Moley
After a nice relaxed morning, we eventually loaded up the kiddos and drove over to the much closer botanical gardens in Kaneohe with our objective being to feed bread to ducks and fishes. The gardens were super lush and beautiful and we kind of had the place to ourselves for the most part. We found what we thought to be the right path down to the lake, and we were certain we'd found the right spot when a herd of ducks and other birds approached us and followed us around until we found a table to sit down at and commence with the feeding. Along with the ducks there were some coots and one large goose. All very tame and friendly, though the goose was a little scarier than the ducks, perhaps just because of its size. We had such a good time feeding the birds that we never actually ended up feeding the fish. Once our loaf of bread was gone we headed back to the house.
Feeding the birds
In the afternoon, after Mom and Kimi were back, I convinced Mom and Dad to go for a little hike with me, to a lighthouse at Makapu'u Head. Not a super long hike, but we were grateful for the overcast sky as the whole hike was unprotected from the sun. Definitely interesting scenery, as we were over on the deserty side of the island. Lots of cactus, and it was interesting that people have taken to writing "graffiti" on the cacti. Not sure what means they use to go about it, but lots of love notes and class of 2011 rules, etc.
Cactus Graffiti
The Lighthouse
Eventually we made our way up to the end of the trail, and probably the best view of the hike, looking back toward Kaneohe from up on the point.
Looking back toward Kaneohe
Rabbit Island aka Manana Island
Rebecca + Kristian 4Ever
Don't remember many specifics from that night, other than just hanging out and playing and having a short Family Home Evening lesson.
Day 4 of our trip was Sunday, and it was an extra special Sunday because we got to go to church, not just once, but twice! :) Lucy goes to school at the Lutheran school next door to their house, and sometimes the school kids get to sing at the church's Sunday service. So we got dressed and walked over to the Lutheran church for their Sunday meeting. Pretty sure it was my first time at a non-LDS church. I was complemented by the greeter on how "classy" I looked in my white shirt and tie.
Definitely a different meeting than an LDS sacrament meeting. The pastor (preacher? reverend?) would say some prayers and sometimes we (the congregation) would join in by saying some of the lines. There was a projector screen with powerpoint where the words would be for us to say. We sang some hymns, one of which was "How Firm a Foundation", but with somewhat different lyrics, and totally different music. Another was a hymn I didn't know, but the tune was one that we use in the LDS church for a different hymn. So that was interesting. Lucy sang a couple times. For a while, they took all the kids in the congregation over to one of the other buildings for a while. Someone got up and read some scriptures. The pastor gave a bit of a sermon. There was an opportunity to make a donation. Kind of a mix of all the stuff I'm used to in 3 hours, condensed into 1. There was a potluck afterward where I had a cookie or something, I think.
Then it was back home for some more hanging out while we waiting for the LDS church meetings. Which was pretty much what I am used to. Fell asleep for a bit during Sunday School. One interesting thing was chatting briefly with the full-time missionaries that were there, as they seemed to know Ben or at least had heard of him. Kind of weird that he's in the same mission where George lives. Definitely different than my mission experience, but I imagine that every mission is different in its own way.
After dinner, we went home, had dinner, and spent more time hanging out and playing. I spent some time hanging out with Elise and Austin while they rode their bikes. Austin has a "helmet" that's actually a deflated kickball that he wears while he rides. Its good that he's happy with it, because apparently they only have one real helmet and Elise wears that. :)
