old friends

Elise is one of the most amazing people I have ever known. If she was mormon I might have even ended up married to her. (that may sound odd but she has the vast majority of traits I would want in a wife) She got married to a great guy named Jerel a while back and the moved off and stopped calling as married folk are famos for doing. A month or so ago I tried getting in touch with her and found her email address, she sent me a reply that said she and jerel were moving out of state and so when she had contact info she would pass it on, but that just isn't good enough for a stalker like me so I used 411 and got her number but nobody answered when I dialed last weekend. Wednesday night I tried again and Wadaya Know Jerel answer the phone. He told me elise was going to be in town wednesday night/thursday morning and gave me her cell number, I called her and told invited her to breakfast. She called back and said that she would indeed condecend to be see with me in public and I was very happy.

Thursday morning we got together at Waffel house and had breakfast and talked, I was pleased to see how well she is doing. She has a fellowship at Indian State in the fall and life is really coming together for her. breakfast was even good.

Afterward we went mike hunting and caught up with another old highschool friend. we talked and laugh and shared phone numbers for a half hour or so then we each went our own way. It will most likely be a very long time before I see Elise again but I hope the best for her and Jerel and with any luck they won't forget about me too quickly.

Jewish Weddings are so worth Crashing

Jewish Weddings are fun if you have never been you should make some Jewish friends and help them get hooked up. Or just bring your own yamecha crash one.

My Friends Avi and Barbara got married on Sunday afternoon and I was there. The ceremony switched back and forth between Hebrew and English and the rabbi would explain everything that was happening for the benefit of the gentiles present.

The Food at the reception was great and there was fun dance where people (including me) hold up the bride and groom in their chairs and sort of dance with them while other people form a giant ring and dance around them.

I found the cultural elements really neat, and I gain some fascinating insights. I thought it very interesting that there is not much difference between praying or reading the scriptures and singing, since the first two are down in a melodic chant. I also found it fascinating that even the wedding ceremony mentions the oppression of the holy land.

Really it was a good time even if I did have to split early and head to the hotel.

I wish Avi and Barbara the greatest joy, I know they will be happy together, if only Barbara can keep him inline ; )

triathlon

So Saturday morning I woke up at my parent’s house, loaded my personal affects into the suburban and went and dropped my kayak at Sunrise and my bike at Guy West Bridge. I then went by my apartment changed and liberally applied sunscreen. (I understate the role of my mother in all that, she drove) I then went back to my parent’s house where my concerned and loving mother gave me breakfast, I had peanut butter and honey on multigrain bread (a food I think of as "rocket fuel") and a large glass of OJ. Then Mom dropped me off at the starting line, I lined up towards the back of the group and stretched a bit.

At the starting line I was pleased to discover that there was a moment of silence for the Sacramento sheriffs officers who died last week and an invocation. I also said a prayer, mine was much shorter and simpler; "Heavenly Father please bless me not to hurt myself and not to embarrass myself, in Jesus name amen." Then the race started, the mass of people gradually accelerated over the next 1/4 mile and I found myself pacing off a guy in a tee shirt that said "Cebu Cafe" after a mile I started to move forward gradually. After a few miles I began to regret the amount of orange juice I had for breakfast and at some points thought I would see it again. I spent most of the 5.82 mile run with a guy in a cycling jersey that said "Bella Vienna" he had a GPS gizmo that told us how far we had to go and his pace seemed to match what I could do, it was also his first Eppies the difference he is 20 years older than me, but I am okay with that.

Actually the running leg was not nearly as bad as I had thought it would be. 5.82 miles is the longest I have ever run, but after running 3 miles I found that it hurt every bit as much to walk so I just kept running. The best part of the running leg was the people who would spray you with the hoses from their back yard, now that is an act of love. The worst part of the run is seeing the lead cyclist pass in the other direction while you still have MILES left to run.

After running is biking and that was my strongest leg, in the fist few miles I passed a lot of people who had been stronger runners than me. The hardest part of biking is being thirsty, I should have packed my own water but didn't. I actually left the bike path and dismounted to use a drinking fountain around the half way point. That was about the same point I saw the first kayaks at. As I got near the end of the bike leg I heard Jordan cheering for me that felt was the best part of the bike leg.

After dismounting from the bike I discovered that my legs really hurt, not how I had known they would hurt but a painful chaffing that made me walk across the bridge funny. I also made the mistake of not stopping and finding water before getting in my kayak. The Kayaking killed me. Everyone and had passed biking caught up pretty quick. I found it very hard to make myself paddle at that point, and with my shoes on inside the boat I could not get comfortable, in fact I couldn't even get my center of gravity where it should have been. I was pleasantly surprised to see much of my family on the banks of the river cheering me on as I went past Ancil Hoffman Park. I wish they had brought drink. The kayaking was MUCH harder than I had thought it would be. Shortly after seeing my family, at the risk of not only capsizing but also being disqualified I removed my shoes. This helped immensely and I was able to keep going.

When I came up to the point where you get out of the boat I asked an official if I needed to put my shoes back on before getting out of the water. He told me not to worry about it and so I hoped out and ran as fast as my sore legs could carry me the last 100 ft to the finish line. I finished in JUST under 3 hours and I am okay with that. The apple and bottle of water and bottle of Gatorade and other bottle of water at the finish line where great however I could only eat 2 bites of the BBQ chicken sandwich.

My Family picked me and my gear up a few minutes later and took me home, I had done it.

Yeah, me one great big check mark on my things to do this year list. I might even do it again next year.

thoughts before a triathlon

Saturday was Eppie’s Great Race, the triathlon I have planned to compete in since setting my goals for the year back in January. Friday night it loomed large in my mind, and the following are some of my thoughts from that night, and pre race Saturday.

Fear, the triathlon really scared me. I was afraid of the pain I knew I would feel after running, and I was afraid of failing.

Doubt. I mainly doubted my preparation, I had not done nearly as much running as I should have. I had only done the river leg once and it was Tuesday night, and since then I had removed the Styrofoam float at the front of my boat and purchased a skirt for it.

Nervousness. I was up until 1:00am looking through my race packet, putting my race numbers on my life jacket, bike helmet, and kayak, and reading the instructions. I kept thinking I should go to bed but even once I lay down it took a while to fall asleep.

I really wanted to sit in a hot tub, but Avi’s spa never warmed up in spite of the fact that I spent half an hour cleaning it.

Another set of thought that oscillated through my mind was high ambition and low expectation. It is odd to think that you are going to go out and beat everybody while at the same time genuinely believing that you are going to die in the attempt to simply reach the finish line.

And at the back of all these sat hope.

Evil Twin

You want to know who Devon is? This is Devon. I am Dars evil twin and I have hacked into his blog to bring you this important message, 'I love my lips!' Evil twins are great, I think everyone should have atleast one.

Until next time-"Curse you Buzz Lightyear! (evil laugh)"

Your favorite Evil Twin -Devon

Thursday

Thursday morning I went to class late, because I wanted to double check my test more than I wanted to be on time. After class I went to my parents house and helped clean the kitchen with Jordan so I could take him out for a while. Then Rosie came over and Jordan and I invited her to go downtown with us and watch the National Fencing Championships and she agreed. However she did try and get us lost on the way there.

Neither Jordan or I fence however like most boys we fight with sticks as often as we can (Jordan has a a scare over his left eye from running his face into a stick I was holding a few months back) and we really like all thing bladed and or pointy, so fencing seemed pretty cool. For the first little while we just randomly watched then I started asking people questions and they clued us in a bit. We also went and harrassed the vendors for a few minutes.

On our way back to the car Jordan and I tried to scale a building then pretended we where racecars and zipped down the side walk. Rosie was only a little bit mortified and that shows some inprovement on her part but she stil takes herself too seriosly to imagine her own racecar and join the fun.

After we took Jordan home, Rosie and I hoped on the freeway and headed for Berkeley. John who is currently at the sumer session at Cal had gone back and forth as to how he was coming back home for the weekend had finally said he wanted us to come get him. The drive to Berkeley went fine but once we got into that strange little city, between Rosie's driving and Johns directions, we go rather lost. (As a general rule do not use landmarks that are forty feet below eye level when giving directions.) in the process we learned that it would seem Berkeleys only enforced law is its parking policy.

John showed us his dorm room and introduced use to his roomy then conviced us that we didn't want to drive into S.F. so we had Dinner at the Chevy's on the bay in Emeryville. then we went down by the water for a few minutes and got in the car and drove home.

The hardest part of all this is that we where trying to keep the fact that john was come up from Crystal, so he could surprise her at her birthday party friday, and she kept calling us. First she'd call John then she'd call Rosie then she'd talk to me, there was a lot of misleading ambiguity. It was all very amusing.

Date on the lake.

I have pondered extensively on the question of wether posting about a date would be a form of "kiss and tell" and decided that since I do nothing untward on dates so it is ok and this is my journal and I would want my grand kids to read about that part of my life. So here it goes.

Wednesday afternoon I went on my first "real date" in a while. Not just going to the movies with a friend but actually asking a girl you don't know much about but might be interested in, to go out and do something so you can find out a little more about them. Sunday at church I asked Michelle if I could take her to dinner on Wednesday she said yes and I told her I would give her a call (honestly I find that part a bit nerve racking). On Tuesday I asked her if she'd be interested in going kayaking before dinner and she agreed.

So Wednesday afternoon I picked her up and we drove out to the aquatic center where I decided to rent one tandom kayak rather than two solo kayakings, and we head out onto the lake. I now think my chose of boats was a mistake for several reasons. first, a tandom kayak puts two people one behind the other, this means you cant look at each other, which makes conversation a little harder. Second, one of the reasons I had picked a tandom was that Michelle had never been kayaking and I thought it would be easier than having her own boat, but I had never been in a tandom so we never quite figured out the best way to paddle and steer the boat. Lastly and least important, I have rather long legs and the solo kayak seemed to better accomodate them. Inspite of that it was alot of fun. The weather was warm but not to hot and the water was not nearly as cold as I expected. We sent across the lake and through a tunnel to a cool little delta, I had never been to that part of the lake and it was rather pretty. Michelle was nice to talk to I learned that we have some simular interests but differant tastes in food (she dosn't like pie, and I hadn't know that was possible)and a little bit about her family.

After the lake we went to dinner. We went to a fun little restraunt called barbacoa, it is new a neither of us had been there but we both enjoyed the food. the atmosphere was very festive and I only felt slightly out of place wearing board shorts to dinner. I had a salad and Michelle ate a sandwich, good choses for dinner when it is still eighty some degrees outside.

I feel like it was a success, and I hope she had as much fun as I did.

Wednesday

In the hands of a trained procrastinator a take home test can be a very dangerous thing.

My statistics class is running two days behind so the teacher changed our thursday test to a wednesday night take home test, this should help my over all grade in the class and is a good thing. I got started on the test as soon as class got out and did three of the eight questions, then I got distracted. I went over to spend the afternoon with Lou (the old man I spend two afternoons a week with while his wife goes to dance classes or runs erronds)and that would have been the perfect time to finish the test... If only they didn't have a pool. So I went for a swim instead.
Then I had a date in the late afternoon, so the test waited. I got back from the date around 7:00 but a family friend is working on moving so my father and Jason and Jordan spent an hour and a half helping Tammy move. Then Cherryl called and needed to borrow some camping gear so I stayed at my parents house until she had she left.

Then it was 10:00pm and finally I got around to buckeling down on that test. I feel pretty good about it but If I had not put it off I could have done well on the test and gotten to bed at what my parents reffer to by the cute title of "a reasonable hour" (you know some time before 1:00am)

Mom and Dad at the Movies

On Friday I took both my parents to see Hitchhikers Guild to the Galaxy for the first time. I had invited Dad to go see it with me because I was not able to do much for Father's Day last month and I knew he would get a kick out of it, Mom was invited as more of a curtosy and I kind of figured she'd turn down the offer since she has a sence of humor that is less "finely tuned and discerning" than ours. My oldest brother David invited himself as well.

I was right. Although Mom did laugh outloud at points during the film she came out thinking the movie was kind of biazzar and with a reaffirmed belief that her husband and sons are twisted. Dad seemed to whole heartedly enjoy the film, including the bit about the whale.

I enjoyed spending the time with my parents and hope they had a good time.

Happy 4th of July

I really should say "Happy Independence Day" since calling it "the 4th of July" does nothing to explane why it is worthy of celebration, but alas I digress.

Idiologically Independence Day is one of my favorite holidays. I am a civically minded, conservative, Mormon, history major so I love the USA and the principles on which it was founded and which it should repressent. However, in its execussion and celebration, it dosn't do much for me. Here in Sacramento there is a parade, there is bar-b-que'n' there are fire works, there are car sales where you can CELEBRATE YOUR INDEPENDENCE FROM YOUR OLD CAR and other nonsence, and that is about it.I don't want a new car, it is to hot to get excited about parades and BBQs, and honestly fireworks don't do much for me.

However, I have grown rather partial to the 4th of July tradition that my father and brothers (the older ones anyways) and I have. We do community service, every july 4th for the past seven years we have headed to the Elks Lodge at 8:00am and loaded pick up trucks with cones, signs and traffic barriers and spent the morning setting up, trouble shooting, and taking down things for the big parade. It is hard, hot work, that for the most part goes unnoticed and unappriciated but it is our tradition. (For those of you that know us it probably dosn't come as a surprise that one of our families most established traditions is manual labor.)

I guess to me it just feels right to commemorate the freedom of this great nation by serving the people around me, especially considering the shortage of people to discuss Jefferson, Hamilton, and Maddison with.

Happy Independence Day, God bless America

Thank Me, I'm not ranting

Over the weekend I had started a heated post on the topic of unlady-like behavior and modesty and other things, but I inadvertantly closed my window and lost it. Also, yesterday my supervisor at work did something to upset me a great deal that I could go off on for a while. Also there are a lot of things/people that bug me and that I could spend a rather expansive posting talking to you about but it is to hot and I am to tired to invest the energy into it. So, instead of being dissapointed with this post that tells you nothing about what s going on in my life, just be glad that I am not ranting.


(It really is far to hot to rant this evening, stay tuned, maybe I'll rant tomarrow)