Lost to the Suns (better them than any other team ... except maybe the Celtics), and lost their longtime legacy.
The news of Jerry Sloan's resignation didn't really sink in for me until I watched the game tonight. I drove Jenny and her kids down to Cedar this weekend, and I'm glad I got to watch the game here. This is where I remember loving Jazz games with my mom, popping popcorn and watching Stockton and Malone read each other's minds. And Hornacek wear short shorts. We always popped popcorn. Could be the source of my addiction?
And Jerry Sloan was always there on the sideline. He started coaching the Jazz when I started, well, life. No denying 1988 was a good year. It felt so weird to watch the game tonight without him on the screen.
Nobody took his resignation harder than Ali, I love how much she loves him. She needs to come back home and draw the Jazz logo on our street in chalk again, like she did with her friends back when her team was in the playoffs with the Bulls.
I think people would still drive around it like they did then.
Running. Sometimes I still dread the getting-started part, but definitely addicted to the feeling you get once you're in your groove. Plus I love any chance I get to listen to Kindal's hand-picked running mix, while I run around in the SUU Track shirt she gave me. Basically, she's my sponsor. Thanks girl.
Garlic. Random, I know. But I used to avoid anything and everything that came into even minor contact with the stuff. Ever since my cooking class last semester, I have entered a mindset that everything I cook should have garlic added to it. Like I'm depriving (insert almost any creation from allrecipes.com here) of its full potential if I don't give it garlic.
Waking up before my alarm. This used to just seriously make me mad. I always felt like I had started the day as a victim of instant deprivation. But a week ago we heard a wonderful devotional from Elder Kikuchi that made me realize waking up too early is wonderful. He challenged us to wake up just 7 minutes earlier and read the Book of Mormon every day. Now when that happens, I just get excited :)
Road Trips. Oh wait ... I've always been addicted to those. Good thing I have two planned in February! Cedar with Jenny and her cute kids, then Seattle the next week! Thank you, Presidents, for giving us a Day. And thank you, Allison, for being in Seattle and letting me come visit you! SOON! Is it weird that I'm excited for 12 hours of driving?
Friday was an adventure up at Aspen Grove. A randomly connected group of us went cross-country skiing, and I call it an adventure since most of us had never been before. And when I say randomly connected, I mean it. Ready, try to follow this: On the left is Neal, who went to Jerusalem with us this summer. His date is Grace (also Jeru) who is next to Michael's sister Rachel (Jeru again). Then Lauren (Jeru) with her date Dave, who is in my ward. Dave is roommates with Jordan, who is also Michael's friend from freshman year, who came on a date with Kimberly, my roommate. (Kimberly and Jordan: not pictured. They were too busy being good at cross-country skiing). Then Michael, and me, and Tyler, Rachel's date, who went to Jerusalem as well.
Did you follow that?
Cross-country skiing stole any sense of coordination I thought I had. The skis are super thin, and I never really did figure out the technique of slowing down or turning. You know that whole pizza thing they teach you in elementary school? It wasn't working too well. And sometimes when we went uphill I would go uncontrollably backwards. Michael would kindly stick his pole back and pull me the rest of the way. It was greatly appreciated.
We got the hang of it by the end, though. I even made it down the steepest part of the course without falling my last time around. I turned around to brag to Michael, but he was coming at me at full speed with no sign of stopping. We collided into a small mountain-ish pile of snow. Would've been a soft landing if Michael's ski wasn't between me and the ground. I'm so proud of my bruise though! It's all sorts of colors. Too bad it's not in an appropriate place for me to prove that to you. Just take my word for it.
I was so glad Kimberly came with us! These days I feel like I only see her when we're running or falling asleep, which means we don't get to catch up enough. I'm no conversationalist when we're making each other run mile after mile in Provo's freeeezing weather, and I make no sense when I'm tired. No sense at all.
On our way back to the car we stumbled upon a Youth Conference dance at one of the lodges. Kimberly and I limited ourselves to two songs, then we decided the leaders were onto us. We just couldn't pass by a perfectly good dance party, even though the average age was 14.
I guess the tables have turned -- the last dance I went to at Aspen Grove was with Ali and her roommates when I was still in high school. It was fun to tell the boys I danced with that I was still a senior when they would ask me what my major was. Maybe not as fun for them though.
I did actually make it to Beantown for New Year's...after failed attempt #4. The flight I was on that Wednesday night was canceled again, but not because of weather this time. Apparently Delta just could not find a pilot. There were a lot of people on my flight who had been waiting all week to get to Boston, so I felt bad for the nice Delta ladies that were taking the hit for it all. But still, missing pilot? They put all the passengers of my flight in a hotel for the night and made us a new flight for 6 am sharp Thursday morning. It was kind of fun. I jumped on my bed.
When I got into Boston I changed my flight so I could stay there until the last possible minute Monday night. Then we hit up some candle pin bowling! It's like real bowling, but much less satisfying. Even if you send your shotput-sized ball right down the middle, it might only knock down three of the ten straight sticks. Bogus.
The shoes are definitely the best part. I wanted to keep them. I would wear these regularly if they didn't live in Boston still.
I can't be in Boston too long without a sandwich at Al's, so we hit it up the very next day! Go there. Get a chicken salad sandwich. It's famous. It should be more famous.
This is outside the Garden right before our CELTICS game! Best Christmas present ever :) Thanks Ali! Ironically, they played the Hornets, so I've seen New Orleans play twice this year. And ironically, the Celtics lost...even though they've only done that three times at home. Well, four, after they play the Jazz tomorrow.
We had a little bit of time before the game so we hit up Modern Pastry for a Canoli. These things are growing on me. Then we buried my water bottle in the snow so we could have a drink out of it after the game. It brought back memories of when Ali would do that on campus my freshman year with egg nog. She's so resourceful.
The boys! Shaq is so big. SO big. We were pretty high up, but he still looked big. (Seriously, big). There were no uncooperative Hornets fans providing sideshows at this game. Ali and I danced our way onto the Jumbotron though! We weren't going to stop until it happened. Our neighbors were very supportive. "You go girls, get us on TV!"
After the game we went to look at the ice sculptures and skaters in Boston Common. The fireworks were beautiful! And Boston had record high temps for New Year's, it was just wonderful. I'm carrying the Celtics shirt I bought in this picture because stuffing it inside my coat only lasted for so long. If you do that, it falls out and then you step on it and wonder what crazy person left their shirt on the ground. Then a man behind you tells you that you dropped your shirt, and you realize that crazy person is you. Whoops.
We made it home in time to officially "stay in" for New Year's Eve, because years of experience has taught us that's the best way to do things. We grabbed Thai food on the way, then got our annual dance party started. Highlights included learning Jessie, Lisa, and Kelly's timeless music video routine in the emotional Saved by the Bell caffeine pills episode.
The real crazy people in this post, however, are these guys...These Bostonians are on the beach on New Year's Day, ready to take a dive into the Atlantic. Who would do that?
Actually, we couldn't resist. I mean, with record high temperatures, it was the year to do it right? So we jumped out of bed, bundled up, and drove to Castle Island. Here we are, ready for Atlantic Dive 1102! We were going for 2011. Rachel told us we did it right, but apparently all three of us are dyslexic.
It was fun watching each group run into the water together...fun because we were avoiding doing it ourselves :) Finally, we had to make our dash. WeirdestColdest Worst Strangest feeling ever. Ali dove under and I knew I had to do it, even though all my survival instincts were against the idea. So I dove.
Then I lost my (well, Ali's) shoe. I remember thinking, "Dang, too bad her shoe is lost forever" because the alternative was going farther out to find the shoe. That didn't even cross my mind as an option because survival instincts were still my dominant thought process. But Ali kept a cooler head through it all and pulled me out to rescue my (her) shoe.
Surprisingly, when we got out, it wasn't even cold anymore. I'm going to attribute this to numbness. We walked the mile back to our car with just a towel, and it didn't even faze us. When I noticed my flip-flopped feet were going through snow and I wasn't even aware of it, I decided numbness was definitely happening.
We gradually added layers as we made our way to our car (oh the parking in Boston), and then I felt my toes again.
And then, just hours before my flight home, I had to go to Al's again. Oh man, I miss that place.
Other highlights: meeting Ali's cute residents at her new job, ice skating and watching all of Ali's highly-skilled spins, going to Church in Boston's new Stake Center, driving by the Harvard chapel that is still recovering from the fire, buying new running shoes to bribe myself to March 19, seeing the piles and piles of snow that stole half of my week, playing with Rachel again...OK that's going to have to be the end of the list, because it could go on for way too long.
Thanks for the fun week, Ali! I'll be back soon :)
You know that "travel nightmare" all over the news? It's real, people. One of my sources says 9,726 flights have been cancelled. Would've been 9,723 without my Boston attempts, so I'm kind of famous. That's Ali's house, which I should be at...so much snow that it turned blurry.
I had a wonderful week in Cedar, then flew out from Vegas. After my first flight was cancelled they gave me a layover in SLC. Then...cancelled again. Luckily this cute family lives close to there and rescued me :) And made multiple trips to the airport so I could be on standby for more unsuccessful flights. It was kind of fun to watch a bunch of people in Red Sox apparel getting frustrated.
So after another flight failure, we headed to the Hogle Zoo. I am in LOVE with zoos, even though this one didn't have penguins? But giraffes and elephants are also high on my list, so it was ok.
This turtle shell was way to appealing to pass up, but I don't think it was made for my size. It took some serious maneuvering to get in and out.
Jaren was way freaked out by all the animals, fake and real. I made him ride a fake tarantula, with him kicking and screaming through the whole event, and I don't think he has forgiven me quite yet.
We ate lunch with the giraffes! Because if you just hold out for a minute, you don't smell them anymore. I had flashbacks of my last trip to Hogle Zoo when one licked me. Then I had more sympathy for Jaren and his hesitant nature.
Logan was much more cooperative than Lydia. There's an infant-sized monkey shadow behind her, but she wasn't having it.
This was much more successful than the tarantula.
Prairie Dogs!
Then this morning I woke up to Jaren telling me that we needed to go outside real fast and build a snowman! I'm not on good terms with snow right now, but I swallowed my pride. First we built a snowman, but Jenny has far more advanced skills...she turned it into a bear. She even wanted to dye it brown and black, but we had limited resources.
Now we're heading up to SLC in an hour for attempt #4! If the snow on this end causes problems, I may possibly remove winter from the position of my second favorite season.
So, I love my new roommate. Really I do. We were both (embarrassingly) terrified to meet each other at the beginning of this semester, but only great things have happened since. Can you blame us, though? I mean, there are A LOT of people at BYU. A lot of people.There are high risks.
But once I realized I was afraid of getting random roommates again, I knew I had to do it. Last chance, right? Enter Kimberly Bluth.
And now we're friends. I mean real friends, because she's the only person I know who loves Reese's as much as I do. Like, the dance-party-anytime, Office-on-Friday-afternoons-because-we-don't-have-a-TV, make-each-other-eat-baked-goods-so-we-don't-feel-guilty-eating-them-too, kind of friends. Oh, and apparently the trick-each-other-into-a-half-marathon kind of friends.
Shoot.
You need to watch that video, for a lot of reasons. First, enjoy the beautiful Canyonlands. Second, be inspired by Mayor Moab's tender words. And third, feel the fear that fills you when you hear the man yelling at the runners, telling them that if they haven't gone to the bathroom they will no longer make it. Terrifying.
The Moab Marathon is a big deal. You have to enter a lottery to be able to run it. So one night Kimberly and I discussed our (slightly unrealistic and numerous?) New Year's Resolutions.
K: "I'm not gonna bake all the time anymore." M: "Yeah, I'm going to bed before 12:00 next semester; scriptures in the morning, too." K: "My room's going to stay clean. Really though." M: "For sure, and I'm going to be as cool as Willow Smith." K: "Definitely. And I'm going to be on time for church." M: "I want to run more." K: "Yeah, I want to run multiple times a week." M: "Yeah, I need to do a 5k or something. 10k maybe." K: "Yeah, we need to do a half-marathon!" M: "Yeah!! Half-marathon!" What? Then we found the Moab Half-Marathon and saw that registration is a lottery. Sign up in November, find out December 10th if you're in. We totally fell for the buy-now, pay-later game. The process combined two of my innate issues -- my firm belief in fate, and my suppressed love of gambling (which has only expressed itself in arcades, thank you, but that alone has made me very aware of it).
We couldn't resist. Then I semi-forgot about it.
BUT December 10th did come. And we got it.
March 19th seems soooo dang close. Bring on the training :)
For Media History, I had an assignment to interview someone 60 or older who was involved with the media in their life.
I love my dad :)
Not that he's 60 or older. Oops.
Part of the assignment is posting the interview online. So that will be part of this post soon! The link has to be included with the assignment, so I did a little pre-posting to hold a place for my project.
Be excited. Be glad you're not transcribing it at 12:15 AM right now.
Know what else I get to do in Media History? Find Philo T. Farnsworth's grave (invented the TV -- he's a big deal) and take a picture by it. Did you know he was buried in Provo?
Did you know the Provo Cemetery has a State Street and a Center Street? Those are all the facts I'll throw at you for now.
