New Medium

I am going to start posting my thoughts at the Man Stuff Blog with a few other guy's guys.

http://gunshooting-bbqer.blogspot.com/

Thanks a bunch!

A LITTLE TOLERANCE, FOR THE LOVE!

I felt like the few people that read my last post gave me the courage to write a new blog post. I decided immediately after my last post that if I got a good response, I would make another one after the NBA Finals since my favorite team and my favorite nemesis were set to square off! Celtics vs Lakers! So here it goes...

It is funny living in Utah how many people hate the Lakers and how many Lakers fans there are. Lakers haters are typically die hard Jazz fans who want any other team to avenge the Jazz most recent loss. So it seems like everyone that found out I was going for the Celtics had to know if I was legit or just wanted blood for the last Jazz Lakers game.

The truth is, in high school it was hard for me to say I had a favorite basketball team. I like a lot of players. Paul Pierce was one of them. One day I bought a shirt because it looked cool... it had this logo, actually:

Not long after, I bought a nice Celtics hat to match it and slowly became a Celtics fan. It didn't hurt that they were the NBA franchise with the most titles. And it didn't hurt that I was already a Red Sox fan (we hate the Yankees, Dan and Kristin :) but love you!).

For two weeks my life was a wreck! I couldn't wait for game one and I was so excited and nervous. Our friends Dougie and Melissa (huge Lakers fans) agreed with us that we would watch the games in LA at their house and the Boston games at our house. We promised each other that we would not let it get between us because rivalries tear families apart! North vs South, Pro Choice vs Pro Life, Leno vs Conan, Team Jacob vs Team Edward. The list goes on and on.

It was a fun series to watch each team go back and forth because both teams played exceptionally well from game to game by adjusting to the other team's strategy. My favorite player, Rajon Rondo, was amazing in a couple of games.

Boston was winning 3 games to 2 with game 6 and 7 both being played in LA. Boston just had to win one more game in LA to win the finals. So far Dougie and I had kept our word of watching the game at eachother's house. But before game six came around, I thought I should back out and not watch it at his house. I was too nervous. I told Anna that I was as nervous as I was at our own wedding. I married a woman who loves sports, too, so she wasn't surprised.

So I didn't want to go to Dougie's house because I knew no matter how the game ended, I didn't want to put any friendships at risk. If the Celtics had won, I would've been so happy that I probably would have said something insensitive to Dougie and the other Lakers fans. That's how I roll (UTES SUCK. See? I can't help it).

Had the Lakers won, I probably would have punched something and either looked like a fool in front of a lot of people after breaking my hand or I would have punched something softer like Dougie's dog. Either would have embarrassed my wife quite a bit. So I decided to watch at my own house alone. Celtics lost and I was able to punch my couch to my heart's content.

For game 7 I followed the same logic. I watched a great game 7 with some people going for Boston (Gustavo and Marjie). It was a great game and as disappointed as I was that Boston couldn't close out the game with the lead they had carried for most of the game, everything quickly fell into perspective and I was happy about the incredible run they made. There's always next year (That still sounds like kissing your sister to some extent in my head).

But what upset me the most about the whole Series and a few other things I have noticed in sports recently is the purpose of this blog post. There are a lot of passionate fans out there. And there is nothing wrong with that. It upsets me when people take it too far and are ready to say things that will offend their friends or family just because of the outcome of a silly game. I know I am guilty of this, but why do we have to do it? Why can't we be civil with each other after sporting events. Do we really get together as fans to compete against each other? What did I gain over Utes fans the last time BYU beat Utah in overtime? What did Alabama fans gain that I lost after the BCS Championship Game when they beat Texas? What did I lose this week when Boston lost the championship after the Lakers made a comeback to win? If I look at the big picture of life: nothing. I'm still alive and kicking it (and punching dogs).

Can't we, as fans, get together when our teams are competing and enjoy the exciting moments we spend together. We love the sports we watch and we love our favorite athletes. But don't we love our friends and family more? Why can't we be more tolerant of one another? Can we lose with pride and win with humility? Like I said, I am guilty of all of this. Only because Dougie and Melissa are moving away this week did I realize this - I can't believe I wouldn't want to enjoy watching the game with our friends that are moving away for good simply because I knew I would be a poor sport about it.

And look at the World Cup. It is a lot of fun to watch. I have never played soccer but I have grown to really appreciate it. But nothing bothers me more than when sports fans, or worse yet, ATHLETES complain that soccer is not a real sport!!! How could you be so ignorant? The moment a baseball fan tells a soccer fan that "Baseball plays until there is a winner! Soccer isn't a real sport," he opens the door for the soccer fan to say, "Soccer players don't stand around for 3 hours and claim they are athletes competing in a sport."

FOR THE LOVE! Can't you let others enjoy whatever sport they choose to enjoy?! Who decides what sport is more important, relevant or legitimate? The fans and athletes! If cup stacking is my sport of choice, let me enjoy it. I will watch it for hours or train to win my championship if I want. Don't try to take away from the joy I get from it!

But isn't that the solution to so many other problems? Can't we simply be more tolerant of everyone? Everyone chooses to believe what they want. There are so many conflicting ideas out there and most of them are legitimate: from religion to politics and even sports! I know we all like to believe we are correct, but who has given us the right to tell someone they are wrong or that they are stupid for choosing to live the way they do? It doesn't mean we have to agree with the decisions people make. I don't think it's right to cheer for a adulterer like Kobe , but doesn't that make me wrong for not forgiving a man for his mistakes? (That's not why I don't like him, BTW. I hate him because he poses for ridiculous pictures):

So the next time someone tells you that he doesn't agree with your opinion on the Arizona Immigration Law, your religion, or whether or not you can call a sport legitimate that can end in a draw, rather than trying to prove he is wrong and you are right, ask him for his take and share yours with him. If you still can't see eye to eye, at least you still feel comfortable inviting him to your house for dinner without fear that he will punch your dog.

We are "Lost" no more

So if anyone out there still follows our quarterly blog, you'll be surprised to find a post from me, Dante. I just had so much to get off my chest. Facebook is usually my channel but not only do I have too much to post in my status, there are so many Lost haters out there that I would be upset if they started telling me that Lost sucked etc.
So Anna and I got hooked on Lost pretty recently. November 2009 to be exact. We spent an evening at Dan and Kristin's house watching the Big XII championship game (Texas won). The game ended early and we didn't want to call it a night. The Christenson's had already watched the entire first season that month and wanted to get started on season two that night. Anna had already watched the first season too. I typically don't like to start shows or movies in the middle, but I didn't want to be the party pooper. I gave in to the peer pressure. (May I add that Torrey from work had been trying to get me to watch Lost for months before this night).
Needless to say, we spent the next 3 hours watching disc 1 of season 2. I was totally confused but completely intrigued. Anna and I spent the next 3 weeks tearing through season 1 and 2. It was amazing! We realized we had to quit during finals week, so with the exception of finals week, we watched at least 6 episodes a week for nearly two months. By the time the final season was ready to begin, we had watched 5 full seasons of a show. Addicted? Yes.
So needless to say, once we caught up we had to find new hobbies so that we could slowly return to society as productive members. It was hard at first and we felt the withdraws.
So after 7 months of obsession, it has finally come to an end. We watched the finale at home on Sunday night. It had the excitement and buzz of the 2004 Game 7 ALCS where Boston had come back from down 0-3 to force a game 7 against the Yankees. There was so much build up and such high expectations that I didn't know how I would be able to handle a let down.
Much like that historic game 7, Lost did not disappoint.
I loved every aspect of the finale. And I won't explain my theories or explanations or blah. There are thousands of blogs that explain all of that. But after talking to other addicts that tuned in for the finale, I have come up with a conclusion regarding those who watched it and their reactions.
I feel like the Lost world was split into two camps: the group intrigued by the science of everything on the island and the group that fell in love with the characters. I never bought into any of the science stuff. Science doesn't make sense to me. That's why I am a sociology major. But I watched the show because the writers did such a good job of developing the major characters and making you feel like you actually knew them. For crying out loud I have probably watched these people for over 100 hours in the last 7 months. That's more time I have spent talking to my mother, father and sister over the last year. Yes it is true.
Now for an aside: BYU professors always tell students "for every hour you spend in class, you should spend two hours studying for that class on your own." I put that advice to use during season 6. Boy did I ever. I can assume that for every episode every week, I would spend about 2 hours either reading about lost, watching recaps etc. Did it help me understand everything better? Yes. Can I carry on an intelligent conversation with someone about what was happening on Lost at any point in the season? Yes. Did I think about each character as a friend? Yes. Did I do this at all during my four years for class at BYU? Absolutely not. Maybe I should ask myself if I did as well as I could have for four years at school. No I shouldn't. I already know the answer.
Well this aside was important as I mention my final point of this blog: I really loved the characters on the show! I had so much fun quoting the show and watching my wife's reaction that says, "You are obsessed. We are going to stop watching this show." She couldnt part ways either though.
When the final episode came around and brought closure to the chararcters, fans like my wife and I were satisfied. Ever since they killed off Charlie I have had this sad feeling that "they would never be together again." Then more characters died and I felt even more despair. But the finale did two things: First it reminded us that this life is important, and the afterlife will be special because we get to spend it with those we care about the most; Second, it showed me that if you had not put the time to understand where the show was going, you would not be satisfied. The casual fan could not be satisfied at all. There were so many subtle answers that would be impossible to interpret if you had not read and remembered the important lines and storylines throughout 6 years of television.
I find myself now in the chapel with the characters of the finale ready to remember and let go.
See you in another life, brotha.

Spring is in the air... or is it??

I heard a rumor yesterday that it was suppose to be a nice and warm 70 degrees today... very exciting right? Wrongo bongo. I woke up today to overcast skies and chilly winds!! So sad. And unfortunately, with Utah's crazzzy weather, it does not look like we will see this nice weather for awhile still =(

Today Intermittent Clouds High 68° Low 43°

Tomorrow Mostly Cloudy High 60° Low 40°

Wednesday Showers High 44° Low 28°

Thursday Rain and Snow Mixed High 43° Low 27°

Friday Partly Sunny High 49° Low 33°

I just cannot wait for the blessed day, May 29th, when Seven Peaks will open, and summer will be here! And yes, we do have season passes!!

Another exciting part of summer besides soaking up and sun and being able to wear shorts and flip flops is that we are graduating!!!! We have both officially applied for graduation in August, and we cannot be more excited!!! Although it will be kind of strange to no longer be a student at BYU, we love BYU, and are hoping the Dante gets into grad school here!! Go cougs!

The Usual.

I have decided that I am just not a very consistent blogger.... so here is my usual couple month catch up of what we have been up too. Novemeber 9th was our 6th month anniversary, and Dante suprised me with a beautiful bouquet of flowers! What an amazing hubby =) My family also were able to come down in Novemeber for Thanksgiving, except for my dad, he had to work... which was lame. His boss is ridiculous... but that is another story. Anyways, my older brother Cody won extra tickets for the BYU vs. Uof U rivalry game by standing on his head and sang the BYU fight song. So we were able to have enough tickets for my mom and brothers to make it to the game! It was such an exciting game, and we ended up winning in over time! We were all screaming like crazy, and Dante and I rushed the field afterwards, it was AWESOME!

December was a pretty crazy month between trying to finish final projects, study for finals, and do Christmas! I am pretty sure Dante and I didn't see eachother most of the week of finals. However, once we ended finals and we have been able to relax during thie Christmas break, it has been so fun! My friend Alena came over on Sunday and we decided to bake our hearts out so we could deliver Christmas treats to our friends! We spent ALL day in the kitchen, but I think that it was definitely worth it in the end.. and hopefully the people we delivered these too did as well!

A couple days before Christmas, we went with our good friends the Seth and Carrol to the Vegas Bowl! We were able to walk the strip the first day we were there. We visted the M&M factory

We also went to the Coca Cola store, and they had a place where you could try 16 different flavors of Coca Cola from around the world! It was really fun to try the different flavored drinks. Some were amazing... others were not so good...

Besides going to the game, I think my favorite thing that we did was watch the fountains at the Belagio hotel. If you haven't seen this before I highly recommend going, it was amazing!

The game was sooooo much fun, and it made it even better that we totally tore apart OSU! However, the game was FREEZING! I seriously thought my fingers and toes were going to fall off after the 1st quarter. This didn't stop us from cheering our heart out at the game though, and since it was so cold, a lot of fairweather fans left and we were able to watch the game from the front row, it was amazing. Of course after the clock ran out we rushed the field with a bunch of our fellow BYU fans and it was sooo fun. We met up with #5 Brandon Bradley who is in our ward, and were also able to high five and take pictures with a bunch of the other players.

Life as we know it... and loving it!

Gosh, I really need to set a time aside each month to update our blog... you know kind of like writing in your journal?? ANYWAYS..... Just to update on our currnet status is life.... Dante and I are both still at BYU and really are enjoying our time here =) We spend a lot of our time apart between school and work, so we try to take advantage of the time we do have together!! I have been trying to find new recipes lately, and Dante acutally found one on his friend's blog for french bread pizza!!! It was so easy to make and it was yummy! All it took was:

- A loaf of French Bread

- Spagetti Sauce with some added Italian seasoning

- Shredded pepper jack cheese

- Pepperoni

- and whatever else you want on top!!!

- cook at 375 for about 8-10 mins

On a random note, one night we decided to have omlets for dinner and this is how it turned out... looking like the states! hahaha

Anyways... a couple of weeks ago Dante and I had our co-ed basketball game and it was getting pretty competitive... and I ended up getting elbowed in the mouth which split my lip almost the whole way through and chipped my tooth!

I didn't want to pay the fee at the ER since BYU insurance doens't cover very much there... so lame by the way, if the BYU health center is going to close at 6pm, they should have a better policy.. Seriously... do they think that people don't get hurt after their closing hours?!?!?! anways, so I went and played in my flag football game... which we won by 5 touchdowns =), went home at showered and was in bed and finally decided that since the cut was on my face that I should probably bite the bullet and go to the ER... we ended up staying there until about 2 am and I come home with a fat lip and 4 stitches.. it was a very exciting adventure. I just want to give a shout out to my amazing husband for putting up with my stubborness and staying with me in the ER all night when I finally decided to go, I love you baby.

4 days after the injury Dante and I flew home for Mitchells farewell talk!! I can't believe that he leaves TOMORROW to go to Brazil... he is sooooo ready though, and he did an amazing job on his talk. He is going to be an amazing missionary, I am really looking forward to his upcoming letters =) We loved going home!! It consisted of a lot of naps, some amazing eating thanks to my mom's amazing cooking, we went to Devon's football game on Friday night, and Dylans football game on Sautrday night. It was a blast and we both wished that we could've stayed longer!! It was really hard to try to get back into the swing of things after we came home!

In the spirit of Halloween I had a work party which helped, and we carved pumpkins!! It was really fun.. for some reason we have carved a lot of pumpkins this year, but I think our latest one is the one I like the most!! It is of Jack the pumpking king from the Nightmare Before Christmas !!

After the work party we came home and studied for awhile and then at 1 am we went to the parking lot across from the football stadium and camped out for the ESPN college game day that came to Provo!! In case you were wondering... yes it was raining while we set up our tent, yes it was freeeeeezing (despite what Dante says), yes it was loud... ALL NIGHT LONG, and yes we did get in line early enough to actually get inside the barriers for the college game day set up! If we wouldn't have gotten in I probably would've counted this as one of our worst experiences together... but since we were able to make it in we did have a lot of fun despite being sleep deprived and cold!! PS... please excuse how gross I look in these pictures... but given the circumstances I guess that was about as good as it was going to get!! However, we both are now sick... haha but how often is EPSN college game day goign to come to Provo?! GO COUGS!!!

Our latest adventures

I know, I am lame.. it has been over a MONTH since I last blogged... totally unexceptable. I guess I will just pick up where I left off. Dante and I left Maryland the 22nd of August, but before we left we did get to do a couple of fun things...

We went to a Red Sox game against the Orioles and it was a blast.. especially since the Red Sox won... Dante would NOT have been happy if they would have lost!

The game was in downtown Baltimore and it was soooooo crowded!! After the game we walked around the harbor area and went to Hard Rock Cafe for dinner.. I am pretty sure they make the best milkshakes ever there... anyways...

We also decided to one day do a puzzle... seems simple enough, right?? Wrongo bongo...

So you may be asking why we decided to do this puzzle... I will admit that it is kind of ghetto, and I really have no idea why we picked this one because it is pretty ugly..but we were up for the challenge...

This is pretty much how our kitchen table looked for a couple weeks...and we found a couple of pieces in there that were the EXACT same puzzle piece!! So needless to say we weren't able to finish our ghetto fab puzzle before we left, but we were both felt find about not finishing it! One thing we were very excited about though was the day we packed up our car and drove all the way back to Utah! We tried to organize our car in an orderly fashion...









but lets be hoenst, between all of mine and Dantes stuff ( he is pretty high maintnance... just kidding sweetie), the car was pack pretty tightly, but we were happy to be heading back to Provo!





However.. after being in the car for 12 hours and having to drive 24more hours we slowly began to lose our enthusiasum for being in the car. We drove from Baltimore to Chicago and stayed the night there and woke up for the 24 hour drive ahead of us. I took a picture on our GPS of when were suppose to be arriving in Utah....

I took this picture at 9:30 in the morning after sleeping in Chicago... if you look closely in the bottom left hand corner it says that will will arrive in utah.. 7:19 AM, the next day. ew.





We did have some movies that we brought with us that we watched on our lap top which made the trip go by a lot faster because it was a VERY boring drive...this is basically what we looked at the WHOLE DRIVE HOME......















Corn fields and bug guts.... talk about boring.






















We ended up driving the whole rest of the 24 hours striaght through!! We stopped for gas at about 4:00am and played frisbee for awhile, and then at about 5:30 am decided to take a nap before we both got too tired to drive. We ended up pulling into our drive way at about 10:30 in the morning... it was AWESOME getting out of the car and unloading everything into our new duplex =)

We are both in school right now and are having a blast being here at BYU!!! I will admit since we have been married we do go to bed before 11:30 every night, but that is definitely a new habit in my life that I don't mind having. =)