College Football!!!

It's the most wonderful time, of the year!

I love football season! There's not a better time all year long.

This year has already been amazing and I'm holding my breath for something truly amazing to happen. There is a possibility, however small it might be, that my BYU Cougars could play for a National Championship again! I know there are still 10 games left but after the first two games we are ranked 7th in the AP poll and 9th in the Coaches poll and there is a possibility that we could make it in there!

The thing that I'm most worried about is the Cougars always seem to crush my hopes and dreams. It's like when everything is going perfect and then you're told that you have to move your horses by the first of May and all your dreams start to crash down. I was alive during the 1984 Championship season but I don't remember it. But we can still dream can't we! Here's to another National Championship, 25 years after our last one...lets not wait this long again!

More blogs to come

Wow! It's already been a long, long time, hasn't it?

I've been thinking of a good post that I'll have to write soon. It's been something that I've been thinking about for a while now. It's a little philosophical for this late but if anyone still reads this then get ready! I promise something before the end of September(I'm giving myself a few extra weeks just so I feel really good about myself when I get this thought through over the weekend!)

For now enjoy a deep thought:

"If I was being executed by injection, I'd clean up my cell real neat. Then, when they came to get me, I'd say, 'Injection I thought you said inspection'. cThey'd probably feel real bad, and maybe I could get out of it."

Super activity or a trip back east?

So I'm trying to decide if I should go to my Ward's Super Activity or head back East. Right now I've already got Friday off for the super activity but I could take Thursday off too and have a sweet trip back east to visit friends in DC, see my brothers house or go to Disney World!
The super activity is to Flaming Gorge with waterskiing, rafting, camping and hanging out with a ton of friends. I always have fun at my wards super activities.
Back East, DC would be awesome. I have a friend who I could stay with and see the sites and enjoy DC. My little brother in North Carolina also has a place for me to stay. He just bought a new house and has invited me back there to hang out. Lastly I have a friend at Disney World that says she can get me tickets to the Park. I've never been to Disney World but I hear it's awesome! I've only been to Disney land once and it was fun so I can only imagine it's that much better!

I hate decissions where I know both options would be awesome!

The New Car!

Alright! The story you've all been waiting for. I've waited for the anticipation to build among the few faithful readers, the story of me buying my new car.

First to preface my story need to say that my brother Jared had just gone through buying a car so he was the skilled professional who helped me.
It was the Saturday after the car fire, only two days had passed since I had lost "The Beast". Jared and I set out around 9 am to look at cars. We visited a few dealers and I sat in one or two cars but nothing really felt right. Around 11 we stopped at a dealer where my brothers friend worked. They were all over the lot showing me everything. We finally decided to take a Pontiac G6 for a test drive and we were hungry (we had spent almost two hours looking at cars!) We test drove it and I liked it; it was a fun car, a 2006 and had about 80k on it. They were asking $12,000 for it but had said they could get it down to $10,000 since Jared knew the manager. I said at lunch that I couldn't go above $7500 and when we told that to them when we returned they immediately said they would do it for $8000, which I said no to. We left for Salt Lake to the Auto Mall. Now at this time we were getting tired but my brother said that he hadn't seen the car that I was going to buy yet. The G6 is important in my story so just tuck that away right now!
After going around almost all the dealerships at the Auto Mall we were tired. It was around 4:30 and we decided to call it a day and head home. As we were driving down the road we saw a sign outside of the Riverton Hyundai show that said they had cars starting at $3995 so we thought we could swing in and have them show us the cheapies. We went inside and no one approached us. This was odd since everywhere else we went we could barely make it out of our car before someone was on us. Finally we went to the front desk and asked for some help. They called over a salesman but he said he was with someone else so they called someone from across the street to come help us. As Chris walked up to us their was something a little strange about him. When he said hello and that is name was Chris the gaydar went off. Nevertheless we asked to see his $4000 cars. We jumped in a car and drove to the other lot and couldn't find any of them but we stopped and he showed me a VW Bug. It was new and it was blue but I just couldn't imagine myself in a bug so told him no. We got back in the car and was turning around when another salesman called out to Chris. The talked with each other and Chris asked where the car we wanted to see was and turns out it was sold but we found out that the same car my brother had just bought was just taken in. This peaked our interests and decided to take a look at the newly acquired vehicles.
We drove around the back lot but with no luck of finding the car and decided to call it a day. As we were leaving the lot my brother asks, "Hey, what about that Grand Prix?" We stopped and jumped out and my brother asked him how the Pontiac line runs, Grand Prix to G6 or the other way around. When Chris said it starts with G5, G6, Grand AM, Grand Prix my brother interrupts him and says for $6500 we'll drive off the lot today!
I was a little shocked but didn't have any objections. Chris got all giddy and said we should test drive it first so as he ran in to get the keys I pulled out my iPhone and searched for the blue book price. High blue book was $12,000 to low blue book of $9500! We got in and drove it for awhile the whole time Chris was in the back seat giggling away. When we got back we told him again and again that we would take it for $6500 as is and drive it off the lot today. We went inside to work the deal.
We sat down and he went to talk with the guy in the glass office and came back with his paper. He said, "Ok the car is priced at $11,900 so if you can just sign on the line and we will start the paperwork!" We both looked at him in amazement and asked what happened to our $6500 deal. He laughed and said that he had to offer it to us at that price, crossed it off and wrote down $6500 as is and had me initial it. He went back to the glass office. When he left Jared and I discussed how funny it would be if when he came back with his counter-offer if we got up and went to the break room, which was also a glass room. He came back and said that he hadn't known that the car had already gone through the shop and had its oil changed and so forth so, so he counter-offered at $8900. We both acted shocked and asked him what happened to our $6500? His response was that it was in the middle of the two and with all the work that had been done inspecting it and doing the oil change and also offered us three free oil changes and a 30 day exchange but we both stood up and said we needed to discuss it. He was a bit shocked at us but laughed as we said we needed out glass office to talk in.
I sat down in a chair and pulled up another car site and found that the high end trade in was $6500! I was amazed that we had hit it right on the nose! I said I would go up to $7000 for all the work they had done and that they didn't need to give us the exchange and oil changes. I explained to him once we came back that IF they paid top dollar for it, which we all know they didn't, then I would add on the expenses for doing their oil change and inspections and so forth then we would bump up our offer to $7000, final offer. He wrote it down and had me initial it again and left for the glass office.
As he came back to us he didn't come straight to us but went and got a folder first. We knew we had it! He came back and said very seriously, "Well, it's been great doing business with you but we just couldn't do it...", then after pausing he said in the most gay voice that I could imitate, "Just Kidding! Congratulations on your new car!!!"

Well, sorry for the long post but it's a great story! There was a lot of details that I left out but you get the point. It's amazing what you can negotiate while buying a car. It's such a fun experience that I would recommend it to anyone!

So until next time, remember, never pay sticker price!

The death of a legend

Two weeks ago I was feeling fine, my car had passed safety and emissions and I had gotten another year with my Mustang. I didn't care that the fender was smashed up from an old accident or that the mirror on the passengers side was knocked out and had one of those round convex, or concave I can never remember, mirrors in place of the real mirror. What I cared about was getting almost 29 mpg and feeling like I was cool cause I had a sports car! I had noticed the heat gauge would sometimes heat up but most of the time that just meant that I needed to add anti-freeze. I figured that there was a leak somewhere so I bought some leak stop and poured it in and kept on driving adding when needed.

On my way to work on April 2nd I was cruisin along feeling good thinking I was going to make it to work a few minutes early. I had just passed 123000 South and heading up the point of the mountain when I saw my heat gauge shoot to the right further then I ever imagined it could go! I immediately started to move to the right to pull off the freeway thinking I would have to add a ton of antifreeze. As I moved over suddenly a ton of white smoke/steam came bellowing out the back of my car. I was at the 146th exit so I pulled off immediately. As I neared the bottom of the ramp smoke started to come into the car through the vent so I turned off the heater, turned the corner into a park and ride parking lot and then I could have sworn I saw flames shooting out from under the hood!

As I came to a stop, constant flames came from the air intake and a few corners of the hood. As I stopped another car came swerving to a stop and we both got out of our cars. He asked if I wanted to call the cops and fire department. I said of coarse! As we were getting out another guy from NAPA auto parts pulled over in his truck and pulled out a fire extinguisher and came running over. I popped the hood and got ready to open it for him when he was ready. As I lifted the hood flames hit my hands for a moment and then he was spraying everywhere. While this was a good thing for the car it wasn't so good for me. The wind was blowing very hard that morning and was blowing the fire retardant right into me. All I could do was duck my head into my chest to try to breath clean air. He got most of the fire out before his extinguisher ran out but there was still flames left in the lining of the hood. We decided to pull out the lining and stomp out the fire.

As we pulled our the insulation we hit the hood prop and the hood came slamming down on the prop. We stomped out the fire and turned back to the car. There was still a little flicker coming from under there so the first guy who called the cops called his work and had them run up with another extinguisher. I ran around to pop the hood again but found that the release was stuck. I got out and tried to unjam the hood and went back around to the release. As I pulled I must have had a lot of adrenalin cause as I pulled I pulled the lever right out busting the cable that ran to the hood!

The reinforcements had arrived with more fire extinguishers and we decided to blast it through the air intake vents. We finally got it out but not before a hole had been burned straight through the hood!

Once all the action was over the cops finally showed up and radioed the fire department and told them exactly where we were. They showed up a few minutes and I showed them the hood release pulley and told them the story. They told me, "Well we can get it open it just won't be pretty!" I gave them the OK and luckily they didn't pull out the jaws of life but they got it open fairly easily.

As much as I can figure as I was driving the water pump busted and that's what caused the steam to shoot out from out the back. Then something shorted out due to the heat and caused a spark to jump up into the hood liner and there the fire started.

I'll post the story of the car buying experience tomorrow. It's a good one!

Pain in the...

It's been a crazy week! I was asked to help out with the Young Ambassador show. I've now done a show in the de Jong with they YA's for 8 straight years! I've always felt excepted until this year. I talked with Bart about "growing older" with the YA's. He said that there are certain ages where you are excepted and certain ages you are not. This was definitely one of those not excepted years. Part of the problem may have been I wasn't introduced until the last show. But non the less I had fun.
I got to be the counterweight for Elphaba! I also got to be the enforcer, again adding to my non exceptance. For the first time in my time with the YA's they opened the "Star Dressing Room". Everyone was told to keep out except for directors. I noticed a bunch of people going in and out and had to put a stop to it. Surprisingly I was challenged by a few of the Young whippersnappers. Oh well, as John Shurtleff would say, "I've been hated by much better people before they came along!"
On Saturday we got the truck loaded and as I was crawling out between the costumes I tweaked my back. Not fun at all. I didn't help unload as it was slowly getting more and more stiff. When I went to bed I fell asleep on my back. I woke up half way through the night and though I might be more comfortable on my stomach. It hurt really bad but I thought I just need to get it stretched out. After about 5 min. I decided to just try to go back to sleep on my back. But I had stretched out my back that it was painful to roll any direction now. Not a fun night. So when I woke up I found all my pain killers that I got from my back surgery time. So I went to Church "high" on Hydrocodine and some IBprofin and Tylenol. It was a dreamy meeting!
Anyway, my back is feeling much better now and I'm hoping tomorrow will be another step in the all better direction.

The Shave

I lost it on Tuesday! I would write more about it but I just walked a mile home in the snow since the plows are trying to keep the Sabath day holy, I guess.

So let me know which one you like the best and maybe I can grow it out like that!

Clinton Anderson

So I just got back from a Clinton Anderson tour and it was amazing! I've seen a lot of his DVD's so there wasn't much new information but it has motivated me a lot!

For those of you who don't know who Clinton is, he is a world renowned horse trainer. He has won the best horse trainer in the world title a couple of times. Anyway, to get to see him live and see that horses can be trained and become very nice to be around was exciting. The other thing I really liked was that I felt like I could have fixed some of the "problem horses" that they brought in.

He also said somethings that I thought apply to all of us, horse people and non alike! The first is that to change ourselves we first have to change our attitude. If only we all realized this when we mad our New Year's Resolutions a few weeks ago, me included. No it's important that we push ourselves with goals and such but it's also important that we'll fail in our goals unless we first change our attitudes about whatever our goals are about.

The second saying was that success is just around the corner, we just need to walk a few more steps to reach it. This reminds me of something my freshman Book of Mormon teacher taught me. He always said that in astronomy that you can see the farthest on the darkest nights and said in our darkest moments if we look we can see the farthest. I've had those moments where everything seems like it's against you and you don't know what to do. If we turn towards the Lord then he can show us things that we might never had noticed during our time of plenty so to speak.

Wow, I wasn't planning on going Churchy but I guess that's what happens.

Anyway, I think this is going to be the last week of the Christmas beard. I'm helping out the YA's on Saturday and I'm sure that John won't let me go if I don't shave. It's been a lot of fun having the beard! So many people have said they really like it and a few have said I need to shave, but there will always be those trying to kill the buzz! Don't worry though, I'm planning on shaving in increments and taking pictures in between!

So until next time - peace!

New Year, New resolve

Ok so it's been awhile, I get it. I've been on tour with the Forgotten Carols and I'm claiming that is the reason I've stopped blogging. Oh well!

I feel as though I should apologize for leaving my last post up there. It was a bit bitter, ok so maybe a lot but hey, I'm a 28 year old single Mormon guy, cut me some slack. Anyway, I'm feeling a lot better and am working on being better. So with the new years comes new year resolutions. Now I use to be against resolutions cause I think you should make goals when you need to and not wait till some designated date to improve yourself. But there is something about a new year that makes me want to make a goal. And the best way to keep your goals is tell others so they keep you accountable. So here we go in no particular order.

I want to ride my horse more. This one steams from me not riding from October to January. I figure once a week is a good goal. I might have to up it come springtime but for the winter once a week would be very good. I've bought some flannel lined jeans and some other cold weather gear so I can go ride down the back road.

Ok, next is to work out more and win this years contest between my brothers. Last year if you remember we had a contest for best in shape. Well we didn't really follow through on that one but this year I feel will be different. We've changed the events to be Push ups, Pull ups, Standing Long Jump, Vertical Leap and a swimming event. This way everything can be done at the reunion and doesn't require a gym. I've got me a pull up bar and have already double the number of pull ups I could do!

Next contains a few different things but can be grouped into Church activity. I've already felt the pulls to go inactive and know that at my age a lot of single guys go inactive. I want to go to FHE every week. I know it sounds simple but lots of things pull you away so it's something to strive for. My ward is also doing a Book of Mormon Challenge again where they would like us to read cover to cover before the super activity in June. I also want to go to the temple more regularly. Once a month is the usual so I'll go for that.

The last has to do with Money. I really need to be more financially responsible. I want to track what I do with my money. I also want to just put away 10% of everything. So 10 to the Lord, 10 to savings leaving me with 80% to be responsible with. Along with this I really need to get my own place(unless my parents go on another mission...ha ha ha!) I've been looking a lot lately at homes and apartments and Condos and such. The biggest problem there is my horse. I either have to take him with me or move close by where he's at.

There you have it. Ask me about these goals and make sure I'm doing it. Also if you want to tell me your goals then I'll ask you about them too! That way we all can improve ourselves.

Anyways, here's to a fine 2009!

Oh and I need to add that today is my second anniversary of horse ownership! It's been a great two years Big Mac! Here's to many more!