elephant gun

Ludicrous

2011-06-16T10:18:00.000-07:00

For the Fridge

2011-05-18T10:51:00.000-07:00

Brazen

2011-05-16T21:00:00.000-07:00

True Love

2011-05-15T14:58:00.000-07:00

I just finished my first year of medical school. Our last quarter was called Host and Defense and covered microbiology, immunology and infectious diseases. It was probably my favorite block so far because now I can watch House and guess the ending.

The coolest parasite I read about is the schistosome, which causes schistosomiasis. The worms penetrate your skin, travel through your bloodstream, and a guy worm and a girl worm get together in the portal vein and mate. This is not a transitory love hug, though. They remain in the copulatory embrace for the rest of their lives. Isn't that bizarre?

Cystinosis

2010-08-03T07:58:00.001-07:00

We have a new blog for Sam. Check it out.

San Juan Island

2010-06-27T16:38:00.000-07:00

Throw Up

2010-06-09T17:01:00.000-07:00

Ball

2010-06-05T07:33:00.000-07:00

Delay

2010-02-10T17:46:00.000-08:00

I’m sitting at the airport. In Cincinatti. My hour long layover turned into a three hour layover. I barely even noticed. I was sitting next to the gate with Life of Pi, when I suddenly realized there were a lot of concerned, perplexed people standing around me trying to talk to the desk lady. Apparently there was a mixup and a flight crew was not arranged for our flight to Albany. They had to find another one, and they’re arriving from Louisville before 4:00.

It’s already 4:00, however, and although the screen says we’ll be boarding at 4:00, we’re all chilling still. That chilling became quite literal with some mysteriously cold air that recently started blowing around our terminal. A door must be open somewhere.

It’s not so bad, having a layover. I wouldn’t want to spend the night here. That’d be super rough. But they were really cool about giving us meal vouchers for the food court, since we’ll be waiting a while. I used mine at Chick-fil-A. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten there. The box of chicken nuggets I ate said the “all breast meat” was fried in “peanut oil, which is naturally free of trans-fat and cholesterol.” And what about the chicken? Did that breast come from a magical, happy kingdom of free-range chickens roaming a lush countryside, eating a normal chicken diet of grains and insects? I doubt it. It tasted like it was fed on processed corn, steroids, antibiotics and cow guts. It actually wasn’t that bad. Just a little soggy from grease. It did taste like America.

This morning I arrived at the Salt Lake airport in time to see the enormous group of outgoing missionaries, which lined the different gates hogging all the payphone space. They were all flying to Cincinatti, a main hub for transfers. Andrew Wing was one of them. He’s Ethan’s brother. That was a surprise. I listened to him and his companion awkwardly contact a tired-looking woman from Northern Virginia. They talked about lots of stuff, thankfully none of which was the first vision. That might’ve been a little too uncomfortable for me. I mean these guys are fresh out of the MTC. Three weeks in brainwashing spirit prison can often destroy all natural tact and common sense about talking to real people. Andrew, or Elder Wing, gave the woman a pass-along card before she boarded her plane, as a souvenir. Not wanting to disturb their conversation, I waited for my own opportunity to talk to Wing. He didn’t know who I was, but I recognized the red hair and freckles and deep inhaling laugh. And his tag said Wing. He had to be Ethan’s brother.

I talked to him while we waited to board. He made some odd comments about Ethan enjoying being naked and how he likes Cami a lot more than he likes his brother. Such overwhelming affection for an older brother. I wonder what Seth says about me. As we parted Elder Wing made sure to tell me to tell Ethan he contacted someone in the airport.

We just got news our flight will be delayed until 5:00 now. Splendid. I didn’t really have any plans, except maybe a dip at the hotel swimming pool. I did plan on reading up on interview questions and preparing some impressive responses. There’ll be plenty of time for that I’m sure.

My flight from Albany went pretty fast. I sat next to a woman with a five month old daughter, almost as fat as Samuel. It made me miss Samuel terribly, even though I just saw him last night. It feels like much longer! I’m used to greeting him first thing in the morning, or rather, being greeted by him and his tired, beaming morning grin. I’ll see him Friday.

The baby cried a lot. Luckily I had my i-Pod and a good book.

I think my life philosophy is this: do what you have to when you have to, and if you don’t have to do anything, do what you feel like.

I finally arrived in Albany at 7:52. That is almost four hours later than my original ETA. We didn't board our plane until about 5:45, almost six. But it went by pretty fast, honestly. I was reading the whole time, in another world, and I was relishing my uninterrupted time with that book.

I sat next to a man who had obviously had something to drink before getting on the tiny connection airplane. He was dressed pretty nicely, so I assume it was a little more than beer. The odor actually took me back to the cold nights in Ukraine.

Across the aisle sat a gentleman whom I’d noticed in Salt Lake. His carry on luggage was a pair of ski boots. He’d hit up every major ski resort in a week. Who has money to do that? He was also reading Life of Pi, coincidentally. He wasn’t as impressed as I was; he was still bogged down by the lengthy descriptions of Pi’s conversion to three major religions.

My plan was to be tough, resourceful and economical and take public transit to my hotel. Good thing I didn’t. It was a lot further than I thought. I actually snagged a taxi outside the airport. And, change of subject, I didn’t think it was that much colder than Utah, despite the humidity.

The taxi was a van. My taxi driver was named Harlan. He was raised a Jew, married a Roman Catholic, and raised three agnostic children. He talked a million miles an hour in an incomprehensible New York slurred accent, but I thoroughly enjoyed that he called me "Sir," frequently. He was all over the place in our conversation, but the unifying motif of his speech was tacking on the words, “and that’s the extent of it” or “whatever” after every sentence. We talked about everything from a female cardiothoracic surgeon he once drove to Albany Medical to the History of Mormonism to his father’s near scrape with a colostomy to the Banality of the Human Condition. I liked Harlan, and was delighted that my fare cost five dollars cheaper than the estimate on Marriot’s website.

Paycheck

2010-01-29T12:18:00.001-08:00

I got paid today! I guess I can stop pushing my shopping cart through the barren wasteland of post-apocalyptic America!

Hunger

2010-01-23T13:18:00.001-08:00

We’re still playing the Road game. It’s amazing how good certain foods taste when you’re hungry. Like yesterday, Ashton pulled out a box of corndogs we’d bought at Costco months ago and offered me one. Normally I would stick my nose up in disgust and say something about how Michael Pollan would be appalled. How could anyone eat such a dubious meat product, most likely pig, but possibly cow brain, chicken guts or roadside carrion, no doubt fed on Iowa’s corn surplus and heavy doses of antibiotics, rammed on a stick and battered with more government subsidized corn, deep fried in corn oil . . . How could anyone actually ingest something like that? None of those things went through my head, however, because the hungry feeling in my stomach overrode reason and logic, and the natural man could only be sated by not one, but two corndogs. Some good things have come out of this game, however, like learning to make bread. We haven’t bought bread for about a month, and I was really starting to crave some carbs. Ashton and I made rolls last week, but now we’ve run out of eggs, so we had to make something else. Turns out we had all the ingredients for this wonderful bread the Martins showed us how to make. Quinn e-mailed me the recipe and I made some Tuesday night. Those loaves only lasted a couple days and I had to make more on Saturday. It tastes phenomenal, and I don’t think I can ever go back to store-bought bread.

Omar

2010-01-17T22:09:00.000-08:00

On Thursday I got an e-mail from BYU saying I was eligible to work in the lab again as a non-student. My professor had put in an appeal for me and we finally cleared all the hurdles. This came as very happy and welcome news, since I was starting to feel more and more guilty about not working the last few weeks. It’s been very relaxing, not working, and I love hanging out with Ashton and Sambo, but I feel like I’m failing in my important role as a provider. The only downside to this re-employment news was that I would have to shave my beard. I had officially made it four weeks on Thursday without shaving, my personal best, and I was starting to look quite grizzly. Unfortunately I still needed to get some paperwork signed and delivered on campus and there was no way they would do it for me without a beard card. So sadly the beard had to go. Naturally, as I shaved it off I did so in steps, photographing each one. I started with a pencil line beard, then a 17th century Musketeer goatee, then a dirty hippie soul patch and mustache, and finally, just the circa 70s "porn" stache. I was going for Wild West or Lt. Jim Dangle from Reno 911, but when I wear my pseudo shapka I look like a Russki, which works for me. I have named my mustache Omar, as in Omar Sharif of Dr. Zhivago.

The Road

2010-01-17T22:07:00.000-08:00

For the last while Ashton and I have been playing a little game. I jokingly call it “The Road,” after Cormack McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel. The game is that we have to eat all the food in the house until we either a. run out of food or b. I get a paycheck. Being unemployed has taught us how to scrimp better and not to splurge (although I had to make some exceptions for Ashton’s birthday). We haven’t really felt poor or exceptionally destitute, but we have felt the pressure of being responsible with the money we do have and trying to pay off our debts. We also know what it's like to hit the bottom of the bank account. We’ve successfully cleaned out the fridge and eaten most of the fresh stuff, and now we’re moving into the food storage. We’ve been going about three weeks without buying groceries, except one gallon of milk. I call it “The Road” because the man and son in that book move from farmhouse to farmhouse looking for food, and they occasionally hit the food storage jackpot and then glut on the stuff they find and keep moving. That’s how I’m trying to look at our little food storage game – a game of survival. Thankfully we won't have to fend off cannibals.

Yoghurt

2010-01-17T22:03:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday we went to the Springville art museum. It was my first time and I loved it, especially the Russian collection. When we got back from the museum we met up with Alpha to make yoghurt. That’s right, we made yoghurt. She brought over a quart of milk and a packet of freeze-dried bacteria starter. We boiled the crap out of the milk, and tried forever to get it to 185 degrees, but I don’t think we broke 170. Then we put the pot in a sink of cold water and cooled it down to 110 degrees. At this temperature we added the bacteria and threw the pot in our oven to keep it warm. We let the bacteria incubate for four hours, and when we pulled it out of the oven we were greeted by the familiar aroma of culinary bacteria. The partially digested dairy goo had a tangy taste, and looked and tasted and smelled like yoghurt. But the texture was off. It was chunky and liquidy and didn’t give me that smooth pudding sensation that I love about yoghurt. I guess that’s what you get from the manufactured fake stuff. I tried adding blackberry freezer jam, which gave it a nice flavor, and a big dollop of honey. I recommend the honey. Ashton absolutely loved the yogurt, which surprised me, I'm not going to lie.

Happy Birthday Ashington!

2010-01-17T17:55:00.000-08:00

You are 24. And a babe.

Chocolate

2010-01-10T13:24:00.001-08:00

Yesterday we had a wedding reception in Centerville for Ethan Wing. Quinn and Violet knew the girl he was marrying from Spokane and wanted to carpool up with us. We decided it would be fun to stop at Tony Caputo’s in Salt Lake before the reception and try the fine chocolate. Quinn and Violet are always raving about it and have shared with us generous samples from their own chocolate collection.

We got there around six and Quinn spotted his favorite employee Nick over behind the cheese counter. Eventually Nick came over and Quinn told him we wanted a quick fine chocolate crash course. Nick was delighted to have new chocolate disciples and for the next hour expounded to us the evils of Lindt, Hersheys and other “cheap” chocolates that are packed with polyphenols and sugar and cocoa butter, and the magical properties of Chuao cocoa beans and the way high quality cocoa beans carry the flavor of the soil they are grown in. We tried chocolates that had hints of blueberries, peat moss, mushrooms and cigars, and let the intensely flavor packed cocoa melt in our mouths.

Apparently Amadei, based in Italy, is the current king of chocolates. It sweeps the Academy of Chocolate competitions every year. Nick gave us a taste of the gold medal bar, the best chocolate in the world. It’s named “9” for the nine cocoa beans used in the blend. Apparently the French said you really can’t get away with anything more than six beans, but the Italians stuck it to ‘em with nine. It tasted pretty phenomenal. Then he shared with us an Amano, the bronze medalist from this last year’s contest. It is actually made by a guy from Orem, and is the finest chocolate to ever come out of America. It is made with cocoa beans from Madagascar, and it was definitely one of my favorites. After that fine chocolate education we headed up to Centerville and had a great time catching up with friends and eating reception refreshments.

Russian

2010-01-03T13:32:00.000-08:00

Last week I failed my Russian competency test miserably for Vangent. I still have a job with them (I hope) but I won’t be getting the language differential pay until I can pass that test. So I’ve busted out all the old Russian study stuff: verb flash cards for the bathroom and reading Russian Liahonas. I’m also watching films in Russian and writing down useful phrases from the dialogue. In general I can feel it coming back fast, which is encouraging, but I’m realizing that maybe I was never super proficient in anything other than conversational and gospel Russian. Now I want to know everything. That way if medical school doesn’t work out, I can also go back and get a quick Russian degree and go work for the CIA as a spy. Last night Ashton said I was talking in my sleep Russian. That’s a good sign.

Resolutions

2010-01-01T12:29:00.001-08:00

"Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws. Their origin is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely nil. They give us, now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions that have a certain charm for the weak. That is all that can be said for them. They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account."

That's from Lord Henry in Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. I thought it was amusing, if not completely cynical. It seems like a lot of people are cynical about New Year's Resolutions, as if it was a complete waste of time to even make them. Even though I know I won't accomplish many of them, I still feel an irrestible compulsion to make them. Maybe it has something to do with my list-making obsession, but I think it has more to do with really wanting to be a better version of myself. And it's not like January 1st is the only day in the year I set goals. It's just a convenient time to reset the slate. I also though it noteworthy that most of my resolutions this year were roll-overs from last year, indicating that they really are just ongoing goals, and maybe 2010 will be the year (or at least the decade) where I finally pull them off!

2009

2009-12-31T07:13:00.000-08:00

This will be my last post in the year 2009, and in the oughts decade for that matter. It's been a pretty good year as far as blogging goes, and by that I mean I've actually done it fairly consistently. There were a few dry patches here and there when school and med school stuff became too overwhelming. It's been a whirlwind of a year, and I'm looking forward to the good intentions and failed executions of 2010.

How have I spent the last week of the decade? It hasn't been that exciting, to be honest. My job in the nematode lab ends on January 3rd, so I've been working as many hours as I can find things to do in there. I'm trying to wrap up experiments to get my last morsels of data, and I've been working on the manuscript that my professor wants to publish. I really like writing, but for some reason it's been difficult to find motivation to write about plant-parasitic nematodes. One nice thing about working in the lab is I can blare my music through the loud speakers. 2009 has brought a lot of good tunes into the world, and it's been very relaxing to give them all a listen. Ashton wants me to stop downloading music as a New Year's Resolution. Anticipating the major withdrawals I will likely encounter, I have downloaded about 50 albums in the last few days. It's like when I was getting ready to leave for Ukraine. Rather than wean myself off Babylonian music, I binged till the last drop.

It's been a good week otherwise. We watched Fantastic Mr. Fox with Alpha on Sunday. Incredible! Best kids movie of the year. Best movie of the year, for that matter. I was in love with every minute of it. It had all the wonder and charm of any Wes Anderson movie, plus the whimsical imagination of Roald Dahl and the dry delivery of Daniel Ocean. Zinger after zinger. Pure bliss. I've been reading the book to Samuel every night before bedtime, and the movie follows the novel reasonably well.

On Monday we partied with the Thompson's in Payson. Good food, good family and Christmas chimes with Grandma. Tuesday night we busted out the paper making kit Sarah gave to Ashton and turned our kitchen into a recycling factory. Who knew a pile of newspapers and a kitchen blender could lead to so much creative energy? Wednesday Ashton, Samuel and I went snowshoeing. There's something about snowshoes that makes you feel invincible. We headed up Rock Canyon Park because it had been snowing all day, and we were able to enjoy some relatively untouched snow. Samuel was a pretty good sport, and despite the cold, he actually fell asleep. To cap the night we watched Cool Hand Luke, Paul Newman's finest.

And tonight we'll celebrate New Year's. Part of that celebration will be reminiscing about the good times of the last twelve months. Here are some of the highlights, in chronological order:

1. Finding out we were having a boy
2. Seth getting his mission call to Auckland.
3. Some amazing summer rock climbing
4. Finishing the MCAT
5. Getting a road bike
6. Seeing Bon Iver live
7. Playing at Burraston Ponds
8. THE BIRTH OF SAMUEL
9. Saying goodbye to Seth
10. Presenting research in Park City
11. Finishing at the nursing home
12. Camping at Silver Lake
13. Going berry picking
14. Laying Galya to rest. Sniffle.
15. Graduating

Yeah, it's been a good year.

Christmas

2009-12-29T08:33:00.000-08:00

Christmas was great this year. Exhausting, but really fun. We went up to Bountiful on the 23rd to spend time with my family. The house is pretty chaotic with all the family in town, but it was awesome to spend time with them, especially since Sarah had come out from Chicago. We went out to eat that night at Buca’s in Salt Lake to celebrate my graduation and afterward went to Temple Square to see the lights. It was bitter icy cold, however, and it didn't take very long before we were back in the car headed home. I tried to put on Christmas Vacation but no one was interested in watching it. I guess Chevy Chase just doesn’t have the same effect anymore.

On Christmas Eve we went and visited the Fishers and their new townhome in Farmington. Samuel spit up all over their nice micro suede couch and they treated us to some delicious caramel wassail. They sent us home with a ziplock bag of Amish Friendship Bread starter, but we’ve seemed to misplace it. We got home in time to do "Chuck’s Deli" with Sarah. Bacon makes every sandwich better. And muenster cheese is amazing. I actually begged for a second because the first was so delectable.

After lunch we hit the back hill for some dangerous sledding. We tried to smoothing out a mound of snow in front of the railroad ties to save our tailbones, but it ended up making the wipeouts more brutal at the bottom of the hill. I almost killed Sophie on one run. After a while people became wary of the treacherous slope and decided to go to the old stake center for better sledding. I stayed at the house with Ashton and Samuel and made some delectable wassail using a Lion House recipe from Alpha. It was super potent stuff. It burned in the throat and boiled in the belly.

In the evening we had potato soup in breadbowls, always a good time and very filling. I think I’ve become accustomed to eating small portions of food at our place because I have a hard time stuffing much in my stomach anymore. We finished the evening by exchanging sibling presents. Sarah totally spoiled us this year. She gave me the book "Caps for Sale" and a box filled with amazing caps for me and Samuel to wear. She also gave Samuel a super charming vest. My folks gave us all pajamas and photo calendars, both of which have become favorite traditions, and they gave Samuel a sweet “shutterfly” photo album. Ashton and I gave my folks this brilliant clock with a goofy photo of everyone in our family in place of each of the numbers. It just happened that there are twelve us of right now, including the dog.

Samuel had a rough night Christmas Eve, so we were ready for everyone to wake up the next morning. We started opening presents around eight o’clock and didn’t really finish until noon. It was quite the marathon. My parents have a hard time keeping track of how many presents they’ve bought. I guess that’s what happens when you start Christmas shopping in February! We were very spoiled, and I got a lot of awesome stuff. My favorite gifts were books, my gray Vans, my bike pump, a framed photograph by my cousin Daniel and this ridiculously awesome remote control helicopter called the Silver Bullet. It’s about the size of a hummingbird and it is a hoot. It’s pretty much impossible to fly without crashing. Samuel got a lot of sweet loot as well, and Ashton made off like a bandit. I almost feel guilty when Santa brings me so much Christmas booty. I’ll just have to remember to pay it forward.

After the present party we had a nice salmon dinner and then took off back to Provo to spend time with Ashton’s family. Ashton’s poor siblings waited all day to open presents with us, and by the time we got there our nephews (who hadn’t napped all day) were pretty wired and nutso and we kind of rushed through the opening of presents in a frenetic whirlwind. We got some great presents there too and doubled our carload. I got the essential Roald Dahl set, which I’m very excited to read with Samuel later, and some base liners for biking and climbing. I felt spoiled last year, but this year was even more outrageous. We hung around for a while after and played Scattergories. I forgot how stressed out that game makes me.

Graduate

2009-12-20T10:53:00.001-08:00

I am officially a college graduate. Friday the 18th was the last day I could call myself a BYU student. Now I'm a BYU alumnus. The reality of that distinction hasn't hit me yet, probably since it's still the weekend. But after Christmas, when the cold, dark days of unemployment arrive, I'll know what it's like to be a grownup.

Final went all right, all things considered. Two of my classes wrapped up before finals week, so I didn't have to worry about them. Conservation Biology, about which I was the most excited, ended up being kind of a drag. It was really for all the wildlife range management and environmental science kids. We still learned some cool things, but as a pre-med student I was definitely out of place. I took the class to learn more about climate change and sustainability, but we barely glanced over that at the end, and by then I had lost a lot of interest.

Cell Biology, which ended up being the biggest thorn in my side, ended on Monday, when I turned in a nasty take home final in which I had to dissect three scientific papers about obscure cellular processes like clathrin coated pit formation and epithelial mesenchymal transition . . . a real snooze let me tell you. The teacher was pretty cool and I learned a lot of interesting stuff, but the weekly problem sets caused me a lot of unnecessary stress. It was nice to get that class over with.

Biochemistry, which is by far the lamest class I've had at BYU (and that includes Humanities 201) was a joke. The professor never taught us anything in class, and I hardly ever did the reading. I took the last midterm for the class before finals week and got a 100 on it. It would've been more impressive if I hadn't figured out how my teacher writes his tests. He basically uses a big question bank because he's too lazy to write new questions, so if you memorize all the homework, quiz and sample test questions, you'll know 80% of the answers on the tests. His final was the same way. I took it in 15 minutes and got a 93 with minimal studying.

My organic chemistry lab, which was supposed to be the bane of my existence, according to most students, ended up being a delightful breeze. Sure the lab write-ups were tedious and the quizzes annoying, but the professor liked me and I pretty much rocked in that class. It ended with a scheduled final on Thursday morning.

Evolutionary Biology, which was supposed to be one of my favorite classes, ended up being a disappointment. I learned a lot, and it was interesting, but my professor's style started to grate on me and my classmates. He was always soapboxing about how lame anyone is who doesn't believe in evolution. He often got carried away with tangential diatribes that really killed the mood in the class. The real kicker is that his exams didn't really reflect an understanding of the material we covered. In order to make them difficult my professor would include lots of obscure and esoteric questions, and if a question was poorly worded or there were multiple possible answers, he refused to admit he'd made a mistake. The man is awesome outside of the classroom, but his class was really irritating. It was by far the hardest final to study for because there was so much material and we had lost our motivation to care. Walking out that final was definitely a satisfying feeling. It not only marked the end to an obnoxious class, it marked the end of an exhausting and challenging semester.

So now that I'm a graduate and have some time on my hands, I think I want to catch up on every book I've wanted to read but haven't had the time to. In that regard, it feels like my education is just beginning.

Gargle

2009-12-06T13:19:00.000-08:00

Manhood

2009-12-04T11:06:00.000-08:00

This morning I completed my last rite of passage into manhood. I changed a flat tire.

The tire actually went flat on Tuesday night, but because I've been so swamped with homework, final projects and exams, I wasn't able to get to it till this morning. Knowing the icy cold that awaited me, I bundled up with a coat, scarf and fur hat, and I downed a mug of hot chocolate to super heat my core. I was sweating by the time I got my shoes tied, and I stepped out the front door to meet my challenger.

I'd watched my dad and friends change flat tires a number of times, but I've always had a defeatist mentality toward any kind of repairs. I'm clumsy with tools and every time I take something apart to fix it, that something inevitably remains in pieces in a box because I can't remember how to reassemble it. I'm the kind of guy that gets taken advantage of in auto shops.

It turned out to be simpler that I thought it would be. Remove spare from trunk. Place jack under car. Crank jack with cool twisty rod. Pop off hub cap with crow bar. Unscrew the lug nuts . . . this is where things got messy. All the nuts were rusted and stuck, and I couldn't for the life of me get them to budge. I tried every angle, every position and every curse word until I had to just give up. There was no humanly possible way I was going to get those lug nuts off without slipping a disc.

I called Quinn. Quinn seems manly enough, the kind of guy who can fix things. I don't know what I was expecting him to tell me, but he actually imparted some brilliant wisdom, and it came from our physics class, of all things. Quinn was a physics TA, so I guess it's second nature to him. To increase torsional force you just have to increase the distance from the center of rotation. Basically making the level longer makes it require less effort to move it. I needed a longer crow bar.

I went into our backyard, cautiously tiptoeing around the overripe plums from our neighbor's tree, looking for a long metal pipe. I found such a pipe buried in the leaves along the back fence. I slid the pipe over the crow bar and pulled it toward me. I was amazed at how easily the nut came unscrewed. Chalk that up as an important life lesson.

Once the nuts were off it was no problem to pull the flat tire off and slide the spare tire on. As I tightened the last nut and lowered the jack, I felt a strong sense of manly pride. I no longer felt like a vulnerable school girl who just got her license. At this point my toes were totally frozen, as was my snot, so I went inside to gloat over my victory.

U

2009-11-30T09:22:00.001-08:00

I'm back on the U of U medical campus, but this time it's not for Samuel. I'm currently sitting in a second year medical school class learning about angina pectoris. I've already had one interview this morning at 8:30, and I'll be having another this afternoon at 1:30.

I've wanted to go to the U of U medical school since I decided to be a doctor. Everything I've done to prepare to be a physician was based on the high requirements of the U of U admissions committee. I've worked in a nursing home, volunteered at the hospital, shadowed physicians, worked as a writing fellow, mentored abuse victims and spent way too many hours studying for classes I didn't care about because I need to have good grades. And it all comes down to today. Based on the scores I get in my interview, my packet will move on to the selection committee, who will debate my acceptance and give me the stamp of death or propel me into the magical world of medicine. No pressure, right?

Although I've always wanted to go to the U, I can't say I've ever really had much confidence or hope that I'd get in. I'm a white Mormon male from BYU, a demographic not super high on the admissions committee's priority list. Now that I'm here and I've seen the gorgeous campus and beautiful facilities, I'm praying for a miracle.

Bladder Better

2009-11-21T16:50:00.000-08:00

So a while back we were concerned with Samuel because he was pretty much always crying and never sleeping. We took him in to the doctor and they suggested avoiding wheat and dairy, and they took a urine sample. Ashton stopped eating breads and milk and pretty much anything that tastes good, and Samuel started sleeping more and having less gas. Two days after the doctor's appointment the health center called and informed us that Samuel had a bladder infection and that was probably responsible for his discomfort. He was on antibiotics for ten days and everything seemed fine. The doctors were concerned, however, because it is exceptionally rare for a little boy to get a UTI. Something about all that internal tubing. Apparently there's an anatomical condition typically associated with infant male UTIs, so they wanted to do a bunch of tests.

Keep in mind, Samuel's urine was sampled by putting a plastic bag on his male part. Not super sterile. I work with bacteria in a laboratory and all it takes is looking at it the wrong way to get contamination. So I didn't have much faith in his initial diagnosis to begin with. Samuel had to go up to the health center and get an ultrasound of his kidneys. He handled that like a champ, and the tech said she didn't see anything wrong.

Then we had to go to UVRMC to have a VCUG test run, where they run a catheter up to his bladder and inject a bunch of dye to take a contrast photo. That was last week. His appointment was at noon and he couldn't eat anything after 8, which is pretty much impossible for him. We got there at eleven to check in and get everything set up. The nurses were cool (except the nurse practitioner, who spent most of the time texting her family because her kid stuck some corn up her nose). They took us back to the overflow of the ER to get his IV and EKG tabs set up. He didn't even mind when they stuck the needle in above his wrist. They gave him some versed, which made him a little loopy. From there they wheeled him back to the scanner room. They had to strip him down for scan, and when they tried to hold his legs down he got mad. He pretty much screamed through the whole procedure. I can't say I blamed him. It was all really ludricous. My favorite part was when he peed on the nurses and techs. They got all the pictures they needed and informed us that they didn't see anything unusual.

The scans and ultrasound were sent to the doctor at the health center who called to let us know Samuel has a mild trabeculation in the wall of his bladder. Random. They were looking for reflux into the ureters and kidneys or a shortened urethra, which they didn't find. He urged us to go see a pediatric urologist to make sure everything was okay. So yesterday we drove up to Salt Lake to Primary Children's Medical Center to meet with a specialist. She informed us that everything looked perfectly normal (surprise) and that she wasn't worried about him. Then, as a reward for his visit, she gave him a cheap plastic hippo made in China, saying he could suck on its head. What kind of pediatrician gives an infant cheap plastic made in China? Honestly.

So Samuel's bladder is better, although I'm not convinced there was ever anything wrong with it. We're glad we made sure, but we're not looking forward to the medical bills on the horizon. Just another example of unnecessary care and procedures to save a physician from a malpractice lawsuit.

RNAi

2009-11-13T13:38:00.005-08:00

When I explain what I do in the Nematode Evolution Lab, it either goes over people's heads or makes their eyes glaze over with boredom. I've posted about my research before, but this last week I got to do some really cool gene knockout experiments. All of my research has been on nematodes who are immune to the effects of RNAi, but before I can submit my data for publication, I have to validate that they really all are resistant. That means I get to feed all of them special bacteria that express double stranded RNA to see if it knocks out any genes in their offspring. To make sure the bacteria is still viable, we have to try it out on the wildtype strain, which is not resistant to RNAi. That's what I did this last week. In most cases I couldn't see a crazy phenotype, but one of the strains had a gene knocked out that affects growth, and I ended up with a plate covered in little tiny nematodes. At first I thought they were just in the larval stage, but a few days later, they were still super small. I felt like I had accomplished something significant. I manipulated the gene expression of an organism and created midget nematodes!

Lumberjack

2009-11-13T13:38:00.001-08:00

Last Saturday I fulfilled a major dream of mine. I got to ride in one of those cherry picker/bucket trucks. We went up to Lehi for my grandpa's 88th birthday to help clean up the yard and garage. I thought we were going to be clipping rosebushes and raking leaves, but then my uncle drove up in an enormous bucket truck. He drove right onto the sidewalk and parked next to a lone tree in the lot next to my grandpa's house. My grandpa informed us that Keith intended to finish what he started a couple years ago and chop down that final tree. My grandpa doesn't even own the lot, but the guy who does is a crotchedy ornery old guy who lives in Bountiful and never comes down to look after it. It had become a high school kegger kind of gathering place, and my uncle decided he was going to clear the lot. For some reason one tree had survived the holocaust, and my uncle had come to finish the job. My dad and I were wondering where the heck Keith got a bucket truck from. Apparently he bought one.

My grandpa walked over with me to greet Keith when he got out of the truck, and he told Keith he had promised me a ride in the bucket. Keith pulled out a chainsaw and asked me if I wanted to cut or drive. We climbed into the bucket, which had a few inches of water from a previous night's rain, and he showed me where the joystick was for maneuvering the gargantuan robotic arm. It took a bit to get the hang of, but in no time we were at the top of the tree, hacking it down limb by limb. With the exception of almost getting tangled in the phone lines, we made it back down to the ground without incident, and I climbed out with my soggy shoes and pockets full of sawdust, and I decided I could do this lumberjack thing for a living.

Halloween

2009-10-31T10:20:00.001-07:00

I haven't posted in quite a while. I'd like to say it's because I was so traumatized by Galya's untimely passing and have been in mourning for the last month. The truth is I've been so busy with school and midterms and life that when I have a free moment I prefer to lounge, chat and otherwise veg rather than exert myself mentally. While blogging is therapeutic most of the time, it can sometimes be downright draining. And a lot of things I would've liked to write were better left private. All right, I'm done apologizing.

I love Halloween. It's not because I have any attachment to pagan festivals of the dead, but because it is a holiday and is an excuse to celebrate.

On Friday night we went over to Byron's place for his annual lab Halloween party. I was amazed that we found his place since we didn't bring directions and Quinn's GPS wasn't working. Ashton was dressed as a fairy and Samuel was a jack-o-lantern. I was Richie Tenenbaum, but no one recognized me or appreciated my amazing costume. We participated in some non-traditional party games, including archery and splitting wood. There was also bobbing for apples, but I abstained to protect myself from the swine flu. Snowball fights periodically erupted as well, and we thoroughly enjoyed Byron's chili and wassail.

Last night we invited some couples over for a Halloween party at our place. We got back from a stake conference meeting just in time to set up our porch for trick-or-treaters. We had little bag lanterns, big piles of leaves and a strobe light going for spooky effect. We got way more trick-or-treaters than last year, and actually gave away all our goodies. Our friends started rolling in around 8. The Platers brought some incredibly ornate Halloween cupcakes, the Drapers brought enough snacks for a super bowl game, and the Martins brought Costco-size load of sugar cookies. We provided some "home-made" root beer with dry ice and juice slushies. It was quite the spread, and I think everyone was afraid to dig in. Around 8:30 a wave of freeloaders rolled in and took care of a lot of the treats, and then they left as abruptly as they had dropped by, presumably to haunt another venue with free food. Don't get me wrong, I love those guys, but we were trying to scale down the chaos a little bit last night. At 9 we watched Silence of the Lambs, which is a pretty fantastic movie, although not very Halloween oriented. Our clearplay machine chopped out of a lot of the interesting parts and sometimes we were left a little confused. No one was scared, but I guess that just shows how numb we are to the dangers of transvestite serial killers who sew clothing out their victims' skins.

Murder

2009-10-07T10:01:00.000-07:00

This morning I started to open the front door to leave for school, and through the opaque glass I saw a brown form on the porch. I smiled, realizing that Galya was probably standing out there leaving her characteristic droppings on the green astroturf. I opened the door to a startling and horrific scene of murder. There lay Galya in a mangled heap, surrounded by scattered feathers. Her neck was bloodied and her face disfigured. Her shoulders were skinned of their feathers, revealing pink muscle tissue and bone. I stared at her for a straight minute, shocked and outraged and devastated. I walked away from the door and back to the bedroom, where Ashton was still sleeping.

"Ashton."

"Are you leaving for school?"

"Galya's dead."

We walked back to the living room and I opened the front door to survey the scene. Over by the porch swing was a puddle and smear of blood which extended to the astroturf. Ashton got a garbage bag and I grabbed a shovel. The tears I'd been choking back began to flow pretty steadily when I picked up her corpse and placed it in the bag.

There's a dog wandering this neighborhood who better watch its back.

Crayfish

2009-09-27T13:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I fulfilled a lifelong dream of mine. We drove up to Strawberry Reservoir and caught crawdads. It was a riot. We brought a rotisserie chicken and a bag of rolls along for a little beachside picnic. Craig, Meg and Greg (sounds like a Dr. Seuss book, right?) and Yo Hey (that's a phonetic spelling of our new friend's name) accompanied us on our outing.

After devouring the savory greasy chicken, we took chunks of the carcass and tied them to the ends of string. Greg went out into the water first and launched his line. He didn't catch anything for a while, but we didn't get discouraged. Yo Hey took a dip in the frigid water while I continued preparing lines with bait. We moved over a ways to a rockier area and continued tossing out lines and waiting. Nothing. Then Yo Hey, crayfish ninja master, spotted a crawdad right where we were standing. We had no idea they'd be so close. We started luring it with the chicken, and it slowly emerged from its rocky lair. The crawdad circled the chicken and then decided he wasn't interested, but Greg had already positioned himself to lunge for the unlucky crustacean. Greg snatched it out of the water with his bare hand and tossed it in a five gallon bucket.

Then the frenzy began. Yo Hey and Greg continued spotting them all over, and one after another we baited the crawdads and scooped them up. Yo Hey found a badminton racket on the shore which he and Greg used to capture them. In the end we only caught eight crayfish, but that was more than enough for a sampling. We left a little early to get Samuel back, and Greg and Yo Hey met us at our place to cook them up, along with Luke. Greg and Yo Hey pulled them out of the cooler and stabbed them all in the head (Greg read that this is the quickest, most painless death, although they continued to move around long after the lobotomy was inflicted). Then we threw them in a big pot of boiling water until they turned bright red. We savagely ripped off their tails and cracked them open. Armed with butter, garlic and salt we carefully extracted the meat and scarfed it down. Yo Hey figured out you could get meat out of the claws too, and we pretty much dissected every part of the animal to get every morsel. It's a good thing we hadn't planned on them for dinner, because we would've needed about thirty times as much. But it was a glorious experience, and definitely something I'll want to try again.

Berries

2009-09-19T18:20:00.001-07:00

We decided we wanted to hit up one of those "pick-your-own-berry-farms." We didn't have any buckets to put our loot in, so we bought a gallon of cookies and cream ice cream and had an impromptu party on Monday night. Fifteen people responded to the free ice cream text message and showed up for some sweet sweet mooching. It was a really good time and a nice way to start the week.

On Tuesday night we went out with Alpha to the McBride Briar Patch in Mapleton. It was impressive. They had row after row of blackberry and raspberry bushes, with ripe fruit just dangling, waiting for us. We ate and picked simultaneously until our buckets were satisfactorily filled.

As I made my way down one row of bushes and approached the end of the farm, I saw a bunch of deer in the neighboring field. As I got closer to the fence I noticed that they weren't your ordinary mule deer. Some had speckles and the bucks had huge reindeer-like racks. It turned out the place was an exotic deer farm, and they had some cool animals. There were some miniature caribou, white deer, curly horned rams and little antelope dik dik looking things bouncing around. The speckled caribou came up to the fence for some berries. They had geese and ducks and chickens running around in there too. The place had me pretty jealous. I can't wait till I can get my own farm!

We liked berry picking so much we decided to go back with our friends on Friday night. Greg, Luke, Ryan, Stephen, Amelia, Quinn and Violet joined us for round two. This time we got a chance to talk to the owners of the farm and they gave us free corn.

Later that night we had a Dune party. A few weeks ago we borrowed Dune from Brinton and thought it was amazing. We invited a bunch of friends over to watch it and had some great laughs. That movie doesn't even need Mystery Science Theater dialogue; every line is amazing on its own. Here are some favorites:

What do you call the mouse shadow on the second moon? Muad'Dib!
Not in the mood? Mood is a thing for cattle and love play, not fighting!
Fear is the mind-killer.
My name is a killing word.
And how can this be? For he is the Kwisatz Haderach!
Bring in that floating fat man!
We have wormsign the likes of which God has never seen!

And it doesn't hurt that Sting dons a winged speedo for a complete non sequitur scene.

Spring City

2009-09-13T14:59:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I went down to Spring City with Ashton, Samuel, Maryn and my parents. Spring City is a little Podunk city down by Moroni, a little over an hour away from Provo. It's a colony for artists, potters, sculptors and photographers, sort of like the art Mecca of small towns. They were having an art festival down there where all the artists opened up their shops, studios and galleries for the public to walk through and check out.

Highlights included a woman who makes violins AND stain glass windows. Her little shop is called the Crystal Fiddle. There was also a hippie out in front of the potter's shop who was carving sandstone by "subtraction." Some of his designs were pretty incredible, and it made me want to pick up a hammer and nail and give it a go. I really enjoyed walking through the main art gallery where a Plein Air contest was displayed. There were some very beautiful scenic pictures in all different styles. My favorites were Doug Braithwaite and Steve Pugh.

What I enjoyed most was walking around the small town and seeing all the historic homes. In a way it was reminiscent of old Nauvoo, although on a much smaller scale. I think it would be really cool to live in a community like that, but there would definitely be drawbacks. Like no cell phone reception. And no nearby shopping. And girls with braided mullets.

Samuel was a gentleman and gave us no trouble all day. He just sat in his stroller or car seat and slept, except when I teased him for a smile.

Other trip highlights included an alpaca farm right before Moroni. I've never seen so many alpacas in my life! It was like the entire credited cast for Monty Python and the Holy Grail!

On Friday night we had Quinn and Violet over to make bread. They brought Kurt with them because his wife is in Canada (something about her being pregnant and the mounties offering free health care.) We made a special recipe Violet learned at enrichment, a fool proof wheat bread. It only had 5 ingredients, and it turned out incredible! It was just as good as the 4 dollar loaves you can buy in the store. One day I want to get a wheat grinder and go totally free of store-bought bread. Samuel was a good helper in the kitchen.

Silver Lake

2009-09-06T19:17:00.000-07:00

So I survived the first week of fall semester. It's going to be brutal, but I also think it will be the most enjoyable semester. I'm finally done with all the lame-o general ed classes, so I can immerse myself in some upper level biology classes. I'm especially excited about my evolutionary biology class (I'm sure I'll post something separately for that) which is taught by my lab boss Byron, and I'm stoked out of my mind for my conservation biology class, which is taught by Rick Gill, the man who persuaded me that climate change is fo real. Con bio is a capstone class and we have to do a conservation assessment for our grade. No exams! My classmates and I decided to get a leg up on the assignment and go camping this weekend. We chose the picturesque and surprisingly accessible Silver Lake for our "geographically bounded region."

Cooper, Quinn and I headed up American Fork Canyon in the late afternoon. We passed Tibble Fork Reservoir, which gave me a heavy dose of deja vu (I went camping there when I was eight with my dad and little brother), and we continued up to a sign that read Silver Flat Lake, 3 miles. We then cruised up a dirt road, which was filled with holes and big rocks. Good thing we had Coop's truck. We got to Silver Flat Lake, which looked like a huge puddle, and parked at the Silver Lake trailhead. The scenery was beautiful, with mostly scrub oak, aspen and pine.

We headed up the trail and made it to the lake no problem in about an hour. The panorama was breathtaking, and I was stunned at how beautiful and untouched the lake looked for being so close to civilization. The lake is surrounded by high mountainous cliffs, formed by a glacier, and the granite crags make for an incredible picture. Fish were leaping out of the lake like mad, and we sent Cooper to catch some while Quinn and I hiked up a little higher to set up camp.

I busted out the sweet tent I bought at a garage sale earlier this summer for the first time. Quinn got to work setting up his hammock, and when we'd put on warmer clothes we ran down to the lake to see what we'd be eating for dinner. Coop had caught a couple brook trout, but he had let one go because it was so tiny. So we set about making a fire away from our campsite (to avoid bear problems) to cook our manly meal, which also included some instant Betty Crocker mashed potatoes, made with water boiled by Quinn's Jet Boil. In lieu of s'mores we had mate, an Argentine tea which got me fairly wired. We saw flashlights near our campsite and hurriedly killed our fire (we technically weren't supposed to light one) and Quinn went down to inspect our company. Cooper and I watched with terror, fearing the rangers had come up to slap a big fine on us. Finally Quinn came back up the mountain and let us know we just had some neighbors camping nearby. We cleaned up our dinner mess and hung in the bags on a tree, then headed back to our campsite.

Cooper set up his hammock around eleven thirty, and we decided to head out under the full moon to see if we could find some wildlife. We took a spotlight with us, and we walked around the lake and perched on a few rocky protuberances to sit and wait. We got pretty spooked talking about cougar attacks, and around 12:30 we decided to head back to camp. As we were walking above the lake, however, we heard a loud splashing noise and we ran to the edge of the trail to check it out. We could just barely make out a silhouette out in the water, and guessed that it was probably a moose. As our eyes adjusted and we continued watching, we became positive that it was a female moose. We decided to get a little closer to try to get a photo. We perched on a big rock and shined the flashlight on her. We could see her eyes glowing and confirmed that it was a moose, but we weren't close enough to take a photo.

We continued watching her for about fifteen minutes, when suddenly she bolted from the lake and started making circles on the muddy shore. She bucked and snorted and grunted and scared the crap out of us. It was super erratic behavior, and we could tell she was really agitated. At one point she started galloping toward us at a surprisingly fast gait. Moose look like such awkward gangly animals, but that she-moose could move! We stood up on the rock yelling and Cooper started clapping at her. She broke left about 25 paces from us and ran out into the lake. She did a few laps and then came back to the shore to repeat the ritual. She must've been just as spooked as we were. We moved to a bigger rock and gathered ammunition to hurl at her should she charge us again. We waited until she swam back across the lake and we couldn't see her anymore, and we made a mad dash for our campsite.

We were all wired on adrenaline and a pretty jumpy. As I laid down in my sleeping bag and closed my eyes, a chorus of coyotes started howling. They sounded really close, like they were down on the lake shore. The cacophony continued for several minutes, and my heart was racing like a hummingbird. I tried to convince myself that coyotes were harmless, but images of a pack of thirty coyotes ravaging our campsite kept flashing through my mind. Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep that night.

We woke up the next morning around 7:00 and went down to the lake to inspect the panoply of tracks left behind by all the nocturnal wildlife. We saw a lot of tracks from our crazed moose friend, as well the pack of coyotes. We also saw a lot of deer tracks and something that looked like Sasquatch.

We spent the morning fishing on the other side of the lake from a rocky outcropping. Each of us took turns with the fishing rod while the others worked on breakfast. Thanks to Quinn's Jet Boil we had some fantastic mashed potatoes, instant oatmeal and hot chocolate. It was perfect for the light drizzle of rain that persisted most of the morning.

I've never been much for fishing, but I had a blast throwing that line out there and reeling in those brook trout. I caught four total (Cooper cast the line on one of those, but I still brought him in). Quinn and Cooper caught some more too, but we only brought three home with us.

Around noon we decided to head home. On our way out we saw our moose friend again, this time munching on some willows down in a gulley. We watched her from a much safer distance on the trail and snapped some half decent photos of her. The whole experience made me want to get out and camp a lot more often. It was a blast. And it didn't hurt that we were doing it for a class assignment.

Feculent

2009-08-28T09:34:00.000-07:00

Wednesday marked my last day at the nursing home. I went out in burning glory too. I was scheduled to work on west, which is the coveted unit, but when I arrived at six a.m. my coworker cheerfully informed me that I'd been bumped on the schedule to the north unit, because she needed hours but couldn't work on north because "it drives [her] crazy." I responded that north drives everyone crazy and walked away. North was nuts, but not anymore nuts than normal. I had section 3, which was 10 people and two showers, but I was magically able to get everything done, and at a fairly high level of quality (just getting stuff done quickly doesn't mean you're doing a good job).

I don't think I've really written that much about the nursing home, which is probably a good thing as far as HIPAA goes, but it really has been an influential job in my life. It has opened my eyes to the unpleasant crevices of healthcare (no pun intended) and made me have a lot more respect for the infantry of aides and nurses that keep so many sick people alive. I learned a lot about compassion and kindness and back-breaking work (rolling a 400 pound person on their side really can break your back, especially if you're tall like me). I definitely will miss some of the residents there, like Marilyn from south, whose Elvis Presley and "Give Said the Little Stream" serenades will always make me chuckle, or the time she stuck a cup of blue jello down her pants. "Can I have a banana? Banana pudding? Dr. Pepper?" I'll miss Ellis, who passed away a while ago. He sung to me in the shower and cracked dirty sailor jokes. I'll miss my more recent friend Bernice, a loving grandmother with an addiction to Rush Limbaugh.

I won't miss the poop. Or the showers. I won't miss the frantic running around, the chaotic stress of answering call lights while trying to remember the growing mental list of tasks and requests. Did I mention I won't miss the poop? Being a nursing aide is hands down the most feculent job I can imagine. I look forward to only changing my baby's diapers from now on.

Nematodes

2009-08-24T13:21:00.000-07:00

A lot of crazy crap happened this last week, and I'm just now getting a second to write about it.

Early Monday morning (like 5:45 a.m.) I took off to Park City for the Society of Invertebrate Pathology annual conference. Last year it was in England, next year it's in Turkey. Lucky me, I got the year it was in Utah. Actually, that's probably the main reason I got to go.

We arrived at the Canyons Grand Summit resort in time for breakfast, a wonderful buffet. The week would be filled with such buffets. I was a basketcase because my presentation wasn't done and I had to present my research at 3:30.

My research. Last September I started working in Dr. Byron Adam's lab. The Nematode Evolution Lab. We study worms. It sounds really lame put that way, but it turns out nematodes are one of the most important and abundant lifeforms on the planet. Back in October I started on an RNAi resistance project. We ordered a bunch of mutant C. elegans strains that are deficient in the RNAi pathway, and therefore immune to the effects of RNA interference. I've been culturing these strains since then and trying to determine how fit the mutants are compared to the wildtype. I've been able to show that there seems to be a fitness cost to the mutants, more or less. This is good because it will keep the mutant alleles very rare in the natural populations . . . ya da ya da ya da. What a snooze, right? This might all be over your heads, but it was pretty elementary at this research conference. I sat through countless lectures of bigwig professors, doctoral students and postdocs with super impressive powerpoints and years of extensive research (and hundreds of incomprehensible bar graphs). When it finally came time to give my presentation I felt like I was giving a science fair project.

I was the only undergrad to present that day, and one of two total undergrads at the conference. So even if my research wasn't earth-shattering, it was still a feather in my cap. I can now put "presented original research at an international conference" on my resume. So that's pretty cool.

Tuesday was a bunch of lectures and a 5k in the afternoon. Byron was in charge of the 5k so we got the privilege of setting up the trail and directing traffic so people didn't get lost on the mountain. After a brief barbecue Ashton picked me up and we headed to Bountiful to participate in Seth's setting apart as a missionary. That was neat.

Wednesday morning we went out to eat at Mimi's cafe for breakfast before shipping off Seth. That place is good! Even though he was in his suit and tie and all packed up, it still didn't hit me that he was really leaving until he stood at the door of our house and we both started tearing up. I just wanted to keep giving him hugs, to talk a little bit more about his novel, to go for another run on the river together. Two years is a long time. I've managed to get married and have a kid in two years. The next two years will be really exciting for us, I'm sure, as we head off to medical school. But for the most part it's business as usual, only now there's a void that Seth left behind. At least he gets the benefit a completely different life for the next two years. That definitely makes it exciting. I'll be chronicling his mission on a blog for him: eldersethjenkins.blogspot.com

I felt guilty leaving the research conference early, since Byron had paid so much money for me to be up there, so I left early Thursday morning to head back up. I got there just as breakfast was ending, and my fellow labsters were surprised to see me there. They informed me that they weren't going to the morning lectures because they were boring and about fungi. Instead they were going to take the morning off and go mountain biking. This made me feel even more guilty, since I had left Ashton with Samuel, who had been pretty colicky lately, with the intention of getting more out of the conference. Byron rented me a really nice Trek mountain bike and we got gondola passes and spent the morning on the mountain. This was my first time mountain biking, and it was pretty intense on some of the trails, but after a couple hours I got the hang of it and was cruising down the mountain pretty confidently. It's definitely something I would like to do again.

Seth

2009-08-17T15:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Seth gave his farewell address before he takes off to New Zealand. It was really bizarre to see my little brother talking from the pulpit like some experienced evangelist. I pictured him when he was a lot shorter, and cuter, and blonder, and we went fishing for my birthday. I thought about my awkward early pre-teen years when he and I would spend hours setting up armies of action figures or lego fortresses, only to never start a battle. I remembered sharing a room and laying in bed at night listening to scripture stories on tape, because he insisted we do it, but secretly I wanted it too. That's how we became such accomplished scriptorians. I saw us playing basketball on the driveway, when I could still drive past him and make a decent layup. I remember before my mission getting him started on the guitar, and playing beautiful Shins duets for my grandparents. I came home from my mission to a punk kid who was better on the guitar and better at basketball and a raving success with the ladies. He didn't need his big brother to show him what was cool anymore (although I can still teach him a thing or two about quality music), and he had become his own man. I wonder if he realizes how much more manliness he's going to acquire over the next two years. And how much hair he's going to lose.

Moving

2009-08-08T19:58:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure what to title this photo. I thought "Summer Reading List" would be funny. I wish. "Bibliophile?" How about "Moving Day?"

Today Lauren and Jesse came down to swap spaces. They are being very gracious and letting us take the upstairs, so we can have a separate bedroom for Samuel. We personally think they're insane, but we're not about to talk them out of it! We'll have triple the space and a lot more windows, so we're pretty stoked.

A lot of other things of note happened this last week. Ashton got her gall bladder out. Yuck. She went under the knife early Tuesday morning, and she was out of the clinic three hours later, walking around and ready to take on the world, or at least the growing mess our house has become since Samuel joined us. Everyone kept telling her to sit down and take it easy, but she can't stand a dirty house. The Percocet definitely helped, but she went off that the next day, no problem. The doctor sent home some sweet pictures of her gall bladder, before and after the cholecystectomy. They cut it open to see how many stones were inside. It was pretty packed! Ashton thought it was beautiful enough to hang on the fridge.

On Thursday I floated the Provo River with the boy I mentor. It was pretty hysterical. Pretty much every great activity I come up with blows up in my face, but I barely scraped by on this one. Right off the bat we hit trouble when we got to a point where the river narrows between some concrete slabs. The increased velocity of the river sucked us right into some low hanging branches (and these weren't twigs, mind you) and although I tried to push off them with an oar, the impact flipped our raft over. I frantically grabbed for Marc before the river washed him downstream and held on to his flailing body by his wrist. I finally got him to stop panicking and stand up (the water was only about 3 feet). He continued screaming and sobbing with tears and snot pouring down his face, while I righted the raft and tried to calm him down. I finally got him to climb back in the raft and we continued down the river. We hit some pretty fun little rapids, and ticked off just about every fisherman we passed. Marc kept calling out to them, "Isn't the water too cold?" "I wish I had caught all those fish!" "We don't want to run into you!" He has the social graces of a walnut. I had my cell phone on me in a ziplock bag so I could call Ashton when I was done. Unfortunately some moisture still managed to leak inside, and my phone stopped working. Curses.

Friday was Fisher's wedding. I got to go up to the sealing, which was performed by Vaughn J. Featherstone. He's a friend of Drew's grandmother, apparently. The sealing was lovely, and afterward I headed across the street to visit my dad at work. I picked a good day, Bagel Friday. We had a nice chat over Dr. Pepper and then I headed back to the temple to see if they were done with photos. I got there just as they were taking the last group shot, and they yelled at me to hop up the stairs. Following the photos was a wonderful luncheon at the Lion House. I sat at the "friends" table, which had seats for six people. Three of them were friends of the bride, a bunch of giggly airhead barbie dolls, and one of them had her husband with her. The other seat was occupied by Mike Polkington, an old friend of Drew's. He's a super nice guy, very fun to talk to, but he acts like a five year old most of the time. Drew's other friends Kelly, Branson and Branson's girlfriend J-Shawn showed up later, and to the dismay of the plastics, we insisted that they sit at our table. The Lion House staff wasn't thrilled, but they relented under Mike's authoritative demands. Our nine person table became a little rowdy, and we missed most of the program, including an epic poem read by Drew's brother about the Andee/Drew saga. Ashton came up later that night with Samuel for the reception, which was in a very nice backyard. There were peacocks caged up near the wedding line, and peacock feathers everywhere.

And Saturday we moved. We're still moving. It might take a while.

Anniversary

2009-08-03T15:31:00.001-07:00

I think it's amazing how life can so dull and ordinary, with nothing exceptional happening for months, and then out of nowhere a million crazy things happen on one day. How do they converge like that? Friday was my one year anniversary, but that's definitely not the only thing of note that happened that day.

The morning started with me being really sneaky and leaving some beautiful flowers and a child's craft table (which Ashton has been talking about for months) at the kitchen table before leaving at 6:30 for work. Naturally that went over well.

After work we took Samuel to the doctor (or mohel, if you're Jewish) to snip off his Gentileness. He handled it like a champ. He didn't even start crying until after the surgery when the nurse unwrapped him. He really doesn't like being naked. The doctor was really great and answered all of our questions really well. On a whim I asked him about Samuel's jaundice, since his last reading had been a little high, but not over the line of danger. He recommended we check his blood again, and we were a little dismayed to find that his bilirubin had actually gone up, instead of down. They immediately sent over a bilibed for him to sleep on. Apparently the blue light modifies the bilirubin in a way that's easier for him to metabolize it. He had to sleep on it for three straight days, and he was not fond of it. It was pretty lousy.

Friday night my mom watched Samuel so Ashton and I could go do some errands and "celebrate" our anniversary. We just went to Target to buy more diapers and stopped at Sonic for some Oreo Shakes. We didn't want to be away too long; strange how becoming a parent does that to you.

Around 11:00 p.m. Ashton had a super painful gallbladder attack, and we didn't hesitate to get to the ER. She'd seen a specialist on Wednesday and he'd indicated that she should get it out as soon as possible, because an ultrasound showed that her bile duct was distended. At the ER we had to wait a bit in the waiting room, which is why I hate the ER anyway. We finally got back to a room and had to wait even longer for the doctor. As we sat in the room we could hear all the techs and nurses outside our door laughing and chatting like they were at some social event. I peeked outside through a crack in the door and saw a stumpy figure with its back to me in teal scrubs participating in the revelry. I hope that's not our doctor, I thought to myself. It was.

He finally came in and very candidly assessed the situation. As soon as Ashton told him she'd have pizza, he immediately pinned that as the culprit and in an almost condescending way chided us for being so careless. He didn't seem concerned about the gallstones themselves. His one mission was to "stop the pain cycle." All he wanted to do was flush some narcotics through her and send her home. We weren't there to stop the pain, however. We wanted to make sure this wasn't a more-dangerous-than-normal attack. Besides, we'd waited to see a doctor so long, the pain was already subsided. He ordered some bloodwork to make sure the hepatic and pancreatic ducts weren't plugged by a stone in the common bile duct, and sent a nurse in to administer the pain killers. When the nurse came in, Ashton told her she didn't want the pain killers, because then she'd have to wait a day to nurse Samuel. The nurse wasn't convinced, apparently, because she hooked her IV up anyway and started a saline drip. We waited for over an hour to have the doctor come back in, tell us the test results were fine, and try to get her to take the narcotics. She still didn't want to, and she insisted she wanted to go home. The doctor acted like we were crazy, but finally consented to her discharge. We went home more than a little irritated.

I know this is my second negative post about physicians. Don't worry, I still want to be one. I'm just learning what kind I DON'T want to be.

Samuel

2009-07-24T20:21:00.000-07:00

He's here! Samuel Martin Jenkins has finally come! And on pioneer day, nonetheless.

Where did I leave off? Ashton and I were chilling in the delivery room. Well, I was chilling, and she was enduring waves of contractions. Around 5:30 a.m. she got an epidural, and at 8:00 a.m. she was fully dilated. The doctor had her start pushing at 8:30. That's where the labor really became laborious. The nurse had me hold Ashton's right leg and count off the breaths, 1 to 10, three times every contraction. Deep breaths, lots of pushing. I was a good doula and Ashton got lots of stylie points for superb face contortions and occasional grunting sighs.

Progress was slow, but finally, around 10:20, we got a good look at Samuel's crown, or at least the small tip of his conical head. The doctor came in and got down to business, and by 10:30 Samuel had emerged completely from the womb, and what a charming devil he was!

The nurses cleaned him up and gave me a good photo op. I'm not a crying man (I think Ukraine replaced my tear ducts with scar tissue), but my eyes were wet and my lip was quivering. I watched this amazing little infant, the pinnacle of God's creations, and felt an overwhelming sensation of love and joy and hope. I watched his vulnerable, innocent body squirm on the bassinet while the nurse suctioned out fluids, and was struck by his unadulterated purity. This baby is pure intelligence, and he came straight down the cosmic pipeline.

Family and friends flooded the room, anxious to see the sparkling new addition to our family. Everyone commented on his beautiful blonde hair, his long fingers, and the little cleft in his chin. He has perfectly shaped lips that Meg Ryan would kill for, and I think he has a strong resemblance to my brother Seth when he was a baby. He definitely has the Thompson nose. And although I may be biased, he is not an ugly baby. Even with the slightly swollen head and the old-man-bitter-beer face, he is not hard to look at. He takes after his mother, I guess.

I am thoroughly exhausted. I can only imagine how Ashton feels. I think a good way to end the day will be to read Samuel his first story: Where the Wild Things Are.

Waiting

2009-07-24T02:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday around one o'clock Ashton had her first contraction. She described it as having the urge to use the restroom; a lot of pressure down there. I was up on campus in the lab, and then from 4 to 6:30 I was in the bowels of the JFSB in a humanities class.

When I ascended from the dungeon, I got a phonecall from Ashton saying she was at her sister's. I drove over there to pick her up and we stayed for burritos. It was then that she informed me that she'd been having contractions about every half hour. A little frightening. We went home around eight o'clock and I bummed around, waiting.

At about 8:30 she started timing her contractions. They were about five to ten minutes apart, and lasted around twenty seconds. They weren't painful or anything, but there was definite spasming. Allie dropped by and we talked with her till eleven. The contractions seemed to be getting longer and a little more frequent. I was pretty wasted from a long day, so I decided to hit the sack.

She woke me up around one o'clock, saying they were still getting stronger. I was pretty out of it, but nervous excitement started to set in. I lay on the bed for another hour, while Ashton started packing her essential belongings. At two o'clock she told me she was ready to head to the hospital, and I swung my legs over the side of the bed. Fifteen minutes later we were in a room at Utah Valley Regional.

Our nurse, Heather, informs us that everything looks great. Ashton is dilated to a 4.5, and the baby's heart rate is good. She's 99 percent sure they won't be sending us home, but we have to wait an hour to see if Ashton keep dilating. So now we're in the strangely homey hospital room, waiting.

Oh wait, an exciting turn of events. Heather is back, and she stays we're staying. She's going to put in Ashton's IV. I guess Dr. Thorpe (a doctor who wears a gold chain) is already here doing a C-section, and he says she's staying. So that's a relief. She probably wouldn't want to gown up again. I'll keep you posted.

Ponds

2009-07-20T11:41:00.000-07:00

This last weekend we saw a lot of pond action. On Friday we went back to Burraston Ponds. We didn't get enough on the 3rd. This time our crew was a little smaller, but no less amusing: Greg, Ethan, Meg, Dan Baird and Ashton. I was also more prepared; I brought my inflatable raft that I bought last fall to replace mine and Ashton's old one. It was the Sea Wench II's maiden voyage, and she's definitely sea worthy.

We brought a picnic basket with chips and homemade salsa and a bottle of Peach Italian Soda, which we drank from plastic champagne glasses. Nothing better than elitist snobs in hick central Mona!

We had a great time swinging out of the trees into the pond. Some kids were wearing inner tubes and doing backflips. They were also trying to swing from the platform and drop right through the tube. When I got up on the platform they held it out in the water for me to aim for, and I passed through on my first try. Pure luck or totally lurpy. Apparently I was the only one who made it through. I'm not sure if that's something I should necessarily be proud of, but I am anyway.

The kids left after a while and we had the swing to ourselves. That thing is a hoot. You get quite the rush swinging out over the water, dropping about 15 feet at the other end of the arc. We spent a while convincing Meg to jump off the platform, but she eventually made the plunge. (She did let go at the bottom of the swing, the point of greatest acceleration. She's still cool, though.)

Greg decided he was going to swim across the pond, and he asked me to follow him in the raft in case he started to drown. When we got to the other side we switched places and I swam back. It didn't look that far, but I was exhausted when we got to the other side. Another reminder of how out of shape I am.

On the way back from the ponds we got stuck in major traffic, but we had a lot of laughs and good music.

Saturday night we went out to Salem Pond with Quinn, Violet and a bunch of their crew. Ethan and Greg showed up as well, and we had a good time eating watermelon and chilling on the grass. That place is packed on the weekends! I was shocked how many people were out swimming in the mucky pond filth, but it's a pretty hotspot in Salem. I went out in the Sea Wench again, mostly making a fool of myself, but it was fun. This is what summer is all about.

Bat

2009-07-16T15:21:00.000-07:00

Today I went in to the control room of library security to get some books for a paper I was writing. As I was copying down some information for the Works Cited page, the officer in control got a call from the fifth floor Humanities desk. Apparently there was a bat flying around the desk, terrorizing patrons. A freaking bat! I called dispatch while the control officer ran upstairs to see if he could get a positive sighting. Dispatch said they'd send over one of the head custodians. I ran upstairs after I got off the phone and found the security officer gloating triumphantly over a library stool. Apparently he saw it fly back into the stacks and he was able to trap it on the floor under the stool. Shortly after I got there, the custodian showed up with a glorified butterfly net. He was able to get the bat in the net, and I got a pretty good look at it. I was surprised how small it was. Now I'm convinced there's a bat cave under the library. Maybe the head librarian is really a crime fighting vigilante.

Apples

2009-07-13T14:33:00.001-07:00

So Ashton's doctor decided maybe she doesn't have heartburn after all. Rather, he thinks she has gall stones. This is kind of a lame revelation 8 1/2 months into the pregnancy, but it goes well with the general theme of lameness we've been seeing with this OB group. Anyone reading this who wants to make a baby, DON'T GO TO THE PROVO OB/GYN CLINIC. Unless you like being treated like a pair of gym socks.

I guess she told him the list of meds she's been taking and expressed her frustration that nothing was working. A week before we found out that the Enablex they'd put her on, to combat the heartburn, is actually for pregnancy incontinence. That's a big oops. Good thing they didn't accidentally put her on some tetragenic drug. Think we have a malpractice lawsuit?

She explained to the doctor that sometimes the pain radiated all the way to her back and up her arm. He then asked her (with a little condescension in his voice), "Well you know what that is, don't you?"

Gee, doc, maybe I do. I guess I don't need your medical expertise. . . No you blockhead! I don't know what it is!

He answered his own question,"It's your gall bladder," as if to say, "C'mon you moron, everyone knows that's a symptom of gall stones." If I'd been there I'd have socked him in the jaw.

He very candidly told her there was nothing they could do until junior came out, and that she should avoid greasy foods.

Well we're not content to wait, so we're trying a little alternative remedy. Ashton's mom told us about this special flush you can do that supposedly will clean out the stones. You simply juice ten apples a day with one lemon, and there's something with olive oil too. So we went to Buy Low for the first time to see if we could get a half decent deal on apples. We bought seventy of them! Pink Ladies, Red Delicious, Granny Smith, Gala, Fuji and Braeburns. It was kind of strange going through the checkout line with that many apples, made more strange by our odd checker. He did know his varieties of apple, however.

Bon Iver

2009-07-10T06:47:00.000-07:00

Bon Iver. For free. Wow.

He was hands down my favorite artist/album of 2008. For Emma, Forever Ago is a haunting and beautiful piece of work -- one of the few albums I can listen to on repeat and never get tired of. Justin Vernon's falsetto has an intimate quality that leaves its listener spellbound. One review of his album said it was like reading some guy's diary.

Through much coaxing and begging I got Ashton to drive up to Salt Lake with me, along with Ethan, where we met the rest of the crew at the Gallivan Center. Greg had been saving seats for about an hour and had a nice little perch under the pavilion on the left side. The crowds were much larger than previous years, and the place was packed with every demographic, from infant to elderly. Most the people were college age, and by their appearance you could tell they were proud U students. Tattoos, piercings and cleavage abounded.

Jenny Lewis opened the show, and I must say she was a lot better than I expected. I usually can't take more than a couple songs when I listen to her albums, but she's a really great performer. I'd say her voice is just as good if not better live than in her recordings. She played stuff from Rilo Kiley and her solo work with the Watson Twins. My favorite number was "Handle with Care." During Lewis's set Ashton went shopping at Trolley Square. While she was gone Andrew and Drew arrived, followed by Allyson and Drew Tack. There were a lot of Drews around.

Ashton got back right before Bon Iver's set started, and I left our spot to go meet her. We had to cross through quite the gauntlet to get back to our crew, dodging endless cups of beer overflowing with foam. Justin Vernon came out a little before nine, accompanied by three backup musicians who bounced from guitar to drums. He opened the concert with "Flume," a favorite of mine, to set the tone. We were all bursting with excitement.

It was one of the few shows I've gone to where the artist played every single song I wanted to hear. That's largely because Bon Iver is still so new; he's only got one major album. From For Emma he played "Lump Sum," "Creature Fear," "Wolves" and "Skinny Love." All four of those songs gave me the goosebumps. I really liked the additional beats provided by the three drummers, especially during "Skinny Love." "Creature Fear" probably got me going the most, with its building climax at the end. He also favored us with the new single he contributed to the Dark Was the Night compilation, "Bracket, WI." That song freaking rocks. It has a really heavy baseline and a sweet beat. He also played some songs from his Blood Bank EP, like the less crowd-pleasing "Babys," which he claimed is about "reproduction." When he finished that song he gave a shoutout to all the pregnant people in the audience, and everyone around us looked right at Ashton, our friends congratulating her.

As expected, his encore was the title track from the Blood Bank EP, and we all just melted into the music, ignoring the hosts of obnoxious chatterers on the fringes. It was a beautiful song, and the perfect way to end the show. I left thinking I would definitely pay to see that guy play again. It was just such an impressive production -- the perfect first concert for the baby.

The Fourth

2009-07-05T10:52:00.001-07:00

My favorite part was when Bob Bennett came through on the parade. We were sitting in front of the Smoot home (primo spots) and the tall senator walked past with his wife and a couple younger looking people. He was waving at everyone and wearing a cowboy hat. Because he wasn't in an old-fashioned convertible with a sign on it, no one knew who he was. I heard several people remark, "Who's that guy? If he was important, he'd be in a car." I'm pretty sure that's Senator Bennett, I thought to myself. But even I wasn't positive. About 3 marching bands, 2 beauty pageant floats and a firetruck later, a tow truck drove by, pulling an old-fashioned convertible with a sign on it that read, "Senator Bob Bennett." I almost died.

The night of the fourth sucked. I had to work traffic security for the Stadium of Fire. I got there at 3:30 and it was sweltering outside. Luckily I didn't have to wear my uniform shirt and I brought my CamelBak. From four to six we filled up the parking lot, row by row. People were pretty rude about it, because they all wanted to park near the exit. They had all sorts of excuses too. "Oh my family's parking down there, and we want to walk back together," or "We just want to park in the shade." I asked the latter if she was keeping a dog in the car, and she sheepishly said no, and I informed her that the sun would be going down long before they returned from the concert. It's not polite to make a parent look dumb in front of their kids, but it's probably worse for a parent to teach their kids that they're entitled to special treatment, or that they can lie to get it.

Once the lot filled up, we had to close the gate. This didn't change the traffic situation on University Avenue, however, and cars were still lining up to enter the lot. We had to form a barricade of cones out in front and only let in people with a special lot pass or a handicap pass. You wouldn't believe how many people abuse those handicapped passes. We'd have SUV's roll through packed with teenagers decked out for the concert, not a wheelchair in sight. It was really irritating, but we had to let them in. When handicap spots ran out, we had to let them park in the special pass area, which meant a lot of people who paid for these special passes got hosed. What was I supposed to tell them? It was a nightmare. So many people were mad at us, and I lost my temper a few times too. Eventually even the special lot filled up, and we had to start turning away people with handicap passes, some who legitimately needed them. It seemed like all the cripples of Utah were lining up, and we had to turn them away. Boy did they take it personally. They made us feel like villains, as if we were intentionally discriminated against the disabled. One particularly bellicose lady screamed a lot of unintelligible nonsense at my coworker, and the man accompanying her called us "amateurs." I don't know whether that's an insult, because I don't think I'm shooting for professional traffic guy, but I was amazed at how rude people were.

Finally we got wise and left the gate area so we wouldn't have to deal with any more hostile patrons. During the performance we had to take down the barricades and load them up on a truck. While the truck was leaving the parking lot the fireworks started, and I hopped off the back of the truck and melted into the crowd to watch. I was dead tired and my feet hurt, and I wanted to watch the awesome fireworks. After that was over, I got to sit in the parking lot for an hour and a half, waiting for the cars to get out. It was pure chaos, and watching it with my i-Pod was pretty satisfying.

23

2009-07-04T13:38:00.000-07:00

You know those boring play-by-play entries? This is one of those.

I can't remember the last time I officially celebrated my birthday on my actual birthday. A lot of times we just do it the weekend closest to Seth's birthday and mine and Lauren's, because that's most convenient for everyone. This round my family came down to Provo on July 1st, since Seth had a performance on July 2nd. Sarah flew out from Chicago because she had the week off, so that was a brilliant surprise. We ate Cafe Rio takeout and opened presents. I made off like a bandit! I got some cycling attire, some sweet books, clothes, movies and a miniature bowling set from my unborn child. And I got some Kinder Surprise eggs.

My actual birthday was pretty uneventful. I had to be to work at 6:30 in the morning, and I was on campus till 6:30 in the evening. Greg invited us over to make goat cheese with him and Alpha. The cheese ended up tasting pretty good, kind of like mozzarella, and we had a nice evening discussing (sometimes yelling) politics, movies and how to properly run a communal farm.

On Friday, July 3rd, nine of us (Alpha, Ethan, Steve, Meg, Greg, Joey, Jessica, Ashton and I) drove down to Burraston Ponds, near Mona, for some picnicking and swimming. Someone has built some pretty high platforms in some of the trees that surround the pond, with a killer rope swing. We set up our beach chairs on the "shore" and munched on blueberry muffins and baguettes. The weather was fantastic, and it attracted a lot of the country folk from around Mona and Santequin to the rope swing. My favorite was this punk kid who vowed to swing from the highest platform and do a back flip over the pond. He swung down all right, but didn't rotate properly and ended up flailing around upside down until he hit the water. Everyone had a good laugh.

On Friday night we went to Ottavio's with Ashton's family. Before we even ordered, however, Ashton had a crippling attack of heartburn, worse than any previous episode, and mid-meal we had to jet to Smith's to buy some maximum strength Mylanta. The heartburn eventually subsided, and Ashton's family came over to check on her. They brought our food from the restaurant and birthday presents. Whitney and Brinton gave me a hilarious book - the Encyclopedia of Immaturity, and Leesa gave me some biking gloves and a bunch of other loot. It's nice to be spoiled by two families. After they left we watched When Harry Met Sally, which I thought was pretty dang funny.

So now I'm 23.

Baffled

2009-06-30T11:36:00.000-07:00

I finally got my MCAT scores. I got a 33. If you would've asked me a year ago if I expected to get a 33 I would've laughed at you nervously. I wasn't even sure I could swing a 30 back then. After taking lots of practice tests, however, I feel that 33 is at the lower limit of acceptable. That being said, I accept a 33 gladly. It doesn't guarantee me a spot in a medical school, but it's not too shabby. I got a 10 in Physical Sciences, an 11 in Verbal Reasoning, and a 12 in Biology.

What I found baffling was my writing sample score: M. For whatever reason, AMCAS grades your writing on a scale of J to T, J being an illiterate foreigner and T being a Pulitzer Prize winner. I can't figure out how in heck I got an M. That's like 35th percentile. NOT GOOD! I might not be the best writer who ever lived, but I certainly feel capable of expressing myself in English. I was expecting something closer to a P or Q. An M is like a piece of poo in an otherwise scrumptious chocolate pie. Supposedly the writing sample doesn't really matter when schools evaluate your score, unless it comes down to a tie breaker. Let's hope and pray it doesn't come to that.

Idiot

2009-06-29T14:32:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty furious. After centrifuging a test tube filled with bleach, sodium hydroxide and nematode eggs, I was sucking the liquid out of the tube and squirting it into the sink (a procedure I've done a million times) and the pipette tip fell off as I depressed the plunger, splashing bleach all over my favorite shirt. My FAVORITE shirt. The most beautiful shirt I have ever purchased -- a light-blue short-sleeve button-down that makes me feel like a billion bucks every time I wear it. Andrew and I bought them at H&M the day we saw Beirut last summer in Los Angeles. I watched in terror as the water marks slowly turned from light blue to purple to pernicious white. Out, out damned spot! You can't wash bleach out. I guess that's why people wear lab coats. Idiot!

Reform

2009-06-28T20:00:00.000-07:00

The last week was nice. Busy, but nice. I started up classes for summer semester and I picked up extra hours at work. Waking up at 6:00 every morning is exhausting, but I need to become a grownup sooner or later.

Working at the library has afforded me a lot of reading time. Last week I picked up Hot, Flat and Crowded by Thomas Friedman. He's a journalist and a little full of himself, and his writing is really really repetitive, but he has a lot of interesting things to say. He preaches the Code Green doctrine, and expounds on the many benefits that will come if we can find alternative energy sources. He argues that with the limited amount of resources in the world, not everyone can live like a middle-class American. But with the globalized economy, it's getting pretty crowded. Going green will help us avoid energy shortages, liberate us from our dependence on petrodictators (and thus improve our national security situation), ameliorate the affects of climate change, and stop the Holocene mass extinction of our biodiversity. Despite his obnoxious writing style, I'm definitely converted to the green religion.

I've also been reading a lot about health care reform and world events, as I try to prepare for upcoming medical school interviews. I've read a lot of opinions on how we can fix health care, and I haven't come to my own concensus yet. There's a lot of information to process. What I do know is that we have the greatest potential to do amazing medicine, but our country finishes last among all the industrialized countries in executing it.

I like the idea of passing a law that requires health insurance companies to accept anyone, regardless of pre-exiting conditions, but I'm not too keen on the idea of having a law that requires everyone to have insurance. And I'm also not sure I'm down with a public health care plan. Even if it can drive down insurance premiums by competing with other insurance companies, it would give the government too much power. I do like the idea of evidence-based medicine and patient-centered homes, but we've got to find a way to pay for them, preferably without bumping taxes any higher.

I'm excited about the discourse on preventive health care, where the emphasis is on keeping people healthy instead of treating sick people. If we could halt the heart disease, obesity and diabetes epidemics, we could save a lot of money, since that's sucking up about 75% of all medical expenses. Of course, Americans don't want to change their lifestyles, and not even a 3 cent "sin" tax on soda will do much to curb the Western diet.

Yesterday we went up to Bountiful for Seth's nineteenth birthday celebration. We ate massive burgers and then put on special-made T-shirts for a family basketball tournament. I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, and my team narrowly lost the first game. The second game ended abruptly when I rolled my ankle. I felt like an invalid hopping over to the stage, but I was proud of myself for not cursing. Vitamin I made the pain go away, along with Brian Regan's ER sketch, and we finished the night with some more star gazing.

Father's Day

2009-06-21T19:17:00.000-07:00

Last night we went up to Bountiful to celebrate Father's Day. I went up with a pretty loaded agenda. Right when we rolled in we headed down to the church for some basketball. Seth and I played Jesse and my dad. I have very few basketball skills, but I am tall, so I just lurped out with a pseudo-hook shot that magically went in two thirds of the time. I also had about a million rebounds. After Seth and I won by two, we had a stellar Father's Day feast, with salmon, steak, pilaf and a wonderful salad. After dinner Ashton helped me clean out a bunch of junk in my old bedroom, where Lauren and Jesse are currently staying. We probably saved more of it than we should have. Everyone protested when I tried to toss a junior high yearbook (I wasn't overly fond of junior high). Sheesh. It was fun though to reminisce and try to figure out why there were so many lanyards in the top drawer. By eleven o'clock the stormy skies had cleared up (quite miraculously) and we took out Big Bertha (a nickname I just coined for my dad's midlife crisis -- an enormous telescope) for some stargazing. We had a little dance party to a Canadian band called Metric while my dad got the laser scope working, and then we practiced sighting stars and finding them in the scope. Did you know that the second star in the handle of the Big Dipper is actually two stars? We also had a good time spotting airplanes and watching them fly by upside down.

Today we visited Grandpa Jenkins on our way back from Bountiful. He's such a great guy. Every time I visit him I wish I had a tape recorder for some of the stuff he says. He always tells at least twenty stories and swears at least four times. He's 87 years old, almost 88, and he recently went to the doctor for a checkup. The doctor asked what was wrong with him, and my grandpa replied that he had come to the doctor to find out just that. The doctor looked at him and said, "Lars, you got out of the car by yourself, you walked into the office by yourself, and you still knew who you were when you got here. I'd say, for your age, that's pretty good!"

My grandpa showed us some navy pictures and shared some stories from his youth. He told a funny story about working the night shift as a radar repairman on the U.S.S. Independence in World War II. All the men had to shower in salt water, to preserve the fresh water for drinking, but after they showered they were covered in salt, which "just about killed you because you'd itch so bad." Since it was two in the morning and no one else was around, my grandpa grabbed some pliers from his tools and switched the valve so that freshwater came out of the shower. He said he was taking a shower, having a great time, when he was busted by "one of those ninety-day wonders" (a derogatory term for dumb officers). He was informed that he would have to meet with the ship's captain and marshal, and that he would likely be demoted. He replied that he would love a demotion, because then he wouldn't have to work the night shift anymore. I guess there weren't any other first class repairman that could work the shift. Needless to say, he never got demoted.

Grandpa took us downstairs to get me a copy of the short histories he'd written for his parents. While he was digging around in the cabinets he found a copy of a short document entitled "Memories of Larry." Here are some excerpts:

"To record my memories of Larry, [in] whom I am well pleased, would take a volume or more. The times since he was five years old and could beat me hands down with concessions in the concentration game. The thousands of knocks on the bedroom wall when he needed help and the hundreds of nights we looked at the stars through the upstairs bathroom.

"I have chosen to tell of his work that few know of. When he graduated from high school and was looking for a job, I was considering building some sort of garage and at the time there was a building boom so no one was interested in a small job. So I asked Larry if I paid him the minimum wage would he build a garage.

"Larry took to learning and planning what he would build. I obtained a building loan from the bank so he could buy what he needed. No one could have worked harder and longer than Larry did as he broke up the two small concrete strips that had been the driveway for many years . . . Each strip was over 40 feet long so there was a lot of concrete to haul away. When we loaded the blocks I was amazed at how even they were. Larry had hit each square in the center and broken them into almost the same size . . . He built the frames for the driveway and we poured 28 yards of cement before we were done.

"Larry's skills of planning became obvious when he designed the position of the garage. Larry planned the garage so that we could have the breeze way covered and tie the old carport onto the back side of the garage. When we got the rafters I marveled at how accurate he had them measure so the roof of the garage and the breeze way and the roof of the old carport came together in a flowing manner and they became one roof.

"When we finished the cost of the garage was only two thirds of what a smaller garage would have been. . . I seldom spend time in the garage without thinking of the summer Larry built the garage. We did have fun and enjoyed doing something that neither had done before. The memory of his love for the gospel and for our family is always a constant as we think of the past."

As Ashton gets closer and closer to having our first baby, I think of my grandpa and dad, and hope I can be the kind of father they've been to their kids. They're both solid, faithful and selfless men, and I am proud to carry on their legacy.

Fuji

2009-06-18T15:49:00.000-07:00

I just submitted my primary application for medical school. That's a nice burden to have lifted from the tired shoulders. I don't think I've ever been so meticulous or anal about anything in my life. I went through each piece of the application over and over, making sure everything was in order and entered in correctly. The worst part was punching in information from my transcript. All my AP, CE, and Foreign Language credits really made it painful. But it's done!

In other news, I got a road bike. That was technically last Wednesday, the 10th. It was a day of guilty pleasure. I ditched a training meeting at work to go up to Bountiful to celebrate the end of the MCAT with Andrew and Drew, and get a bunch of new music. We stopped at Pedersen's to see how much their bikes were. I'd been shopping for a bike for months, checking KSL and craigslist everyday, and I was tired of not finding what I wanted. Pedersens was selling the Fuji model I'd looked at for 120 bucks cheaper than anywhere else. Ashton gave me the go ahead, and I became the proud owner of a brand spankin' new Fuji road bike.

Tuesday was the first day I was able go out for a ride. Quinn, my cycling fanatic friend, had been wanting to go for a ride for the last week. I was a little hesitant to go with him, since he's a seasoned cyclist and I'm a wuss, but I really didn't have an excuse better than that. He rode down to my house, decked out in a Lance Armstrong racing suit that made my t-shirt and gym shorts getup look totally homemade. We headed up Canyon Road, and it wasn't long before Quinn and his grapefruit-sized gastrocnemii were leaving me in the dust.

Thanks to a couple red lights I caught up to Quinn, but the emasculation wasn't over. Quinn decided it would be fun to ride up Foothill Drive, an insanely steep road that wraps around to where Ashton's mom lives. After about a third the way up my legs turned to goo and I pulled into a random driveway in shame. Quinn raced up the hill at a solid pace, not even realizing I was still at the bottom. Following that thorough castration, Quinn had to head home, and I decided to go to Ashton's mom's a different way, since Ashton was waiting there. I road back down Canyon Road until I hit Quail and started heading east up the mountain. It turned out Quail was worse than Foothill, but I just had to make it to the top. Somehow I made it to the top, but I think I burned my entire glycogen storage getting there.

The following day I decided to take a shorter, less strenuous ride. I headed down the Provo River Parkway toward Utah Lake. Things were going great until I cruised through a swarm of swamp flies and took one in the eye. I thought I got it out, but two hours later I was enjoying "Obama's Rescue Plan,"an exceptionally delicious and cheap Mexican plate, and as I rubbed my irritated eye, the bug finally came out on the tip of my finger. No one else seemed as impressed as I was.

Lazarus

2009-06-11T08:13:00.001-07:00

I know you're probably tired of reading about miraculous fish survivals, but when I find myself telling the same story to multiple people, I realize it's probably blog worthy.

A couple of weeks ago we had a barbecue at my biology professor's place. As part of the evening we were asked to share talents, for which we were awarded a betta fish. Byron had been keeping 38 bettas in his laboratory for his evolutionary biology class for some experiment with male dominance. I personally think they were having cock fights on the weekends. With the experiment completed, Byron had a lot of fish to dispose of, and one by one guests at the barbecue got up and performed lame-o talents to receive their gilled prize. I played an Avril Lavigne pop song on Byron's guitar and picked out a nice purple fish. As the guests dwindled and the box of fish remained relatively full, I felt it my duty to pick out a couple more fish, to ensure that they made it to a good home. I chose a healthy red looking fish and a feisty little guy named Franky Valentino, who apparently had proved his fighting skills earlier.

The fish sat in our kitchen for about a week before we had time to set up new homes for them. Each fish needs its own container, and we didn't have enough fish bowls for all of them. We went to DI and I picked out some plain looking vases, despite Ashton's protests (they weren't aesthetically pleasing). We only got two vases, so the red fish remained in the Petsco cup he was purchased in.

During our awesome baby shower on Saturday, Ashton arranged the vases and cup on the window sill above the sink, and she left the lid off the red fish's cup. A couple hours later we were scurrying around getting ready to attend a cousin's baptism, and we noticed that the cup above the sink had only water in it. We were very perplexed, and we looked all around the window sill and sink to see where the red fish might've plunged to. I sniffed around the drain and detected a definite fishy smell. I shined a flash light down the drain, and saw the unlucky pet, obviously dead. We have no idea how long he'd been there, but the aroma indicated it might've been a while. I sprayed water down the drain to dislodge his body and reached down with a glove to retrieve him. I dropped him in the sink and confirmed that he was dead. Not knowing what to do with him, I threw him back in the cup of water so we could take off for the baptism. As I washed the gloves off in the sink, Ashton noticed that the fish's gills were starting to move. The fish gradually began moving its fins, but it was tipped on its side. We left for the baptism, and when we got back, the fish was still alive, and looking pretty normal and healthy. We were completely amazed at his recovery, and I named him Lazarus. Those bettas are invincible.

Unfortunately Lazarus's tail fin has slowly deteriorated and fallen off in chunks. I think that while he lay in the disposal his circulatory system pumped all the blood to the core, keeping all his vitals okay but causing his extremities to die. It's definitely affected his ability to swim. He kind of looks like he's nodding.

Shadowing

2009-06-02T20:58:00.000-07:00

In the last week I've had two opportunities to shadow physicians, and I've seen two very different ends of the spectrum. The first physician is a family physician down in Hurricane, UT. I've shadowed him before, and I always enjoyed the variety of patients he saw. In any given day you see everything from shingles to sunspots. True, many of the patients were on the crazy side or looking for handouts, but in general they were just nice people who obviously had a lot of respect for this doctor. I was impressed by his dedication to his patients, and how he always took as much time as each case required, until every question was resolved or a plan was set to resolve it. Ashton and I have been less than satisfied with the OB doctors she's been visiting. They're in and out before you can ask any questions, and often shut the door on you when you're mid-sentence, so it was refreshing to see a physician who cares about his patients and physicians who trust and love their physician. It's that kind of doctor/patient relationship that's making me gravitate to family practice.

On Friday morning we started the day a little unusually. Ashton and I were driving up from Vegas, planning to meet Danny before he left for the clinic. As we approached the city limits I gave him a call to confirm the time we were leaving, and he informed me that he was in St. George at Dixie Regional because one of his patients was in labor. "Do you want to come watch?" he asked. "If that lady's down!" I replied with excitement.

After dropping Ashton off I was speeding back down South I-15, not wanting to miss a minute of the action. I got there just in time, and Danny showed me all the monitors and graphs he was watching to make sure the baby was doing okay. Just twenty minute after my arrival Danny announced it was go time, and we went into the woman's room.

She's had an epidural, so she wasn't in any pain, but you could tell she was exhausted from all the contractions and pushing. This didn't stop the nurses from screaming like taskmasters, demanding that she push and push, "just one more time." Finally the baby's crown emerged from the (for lack of a better word) orifice, and I was surprised at how small it looked. I thought the head was a lot bigger than that, I said to myself, remembering a movie I'd seen in Biology class. Danny had to use the forceps to rotate the baby's head a little, and as he braced himself and started tugging, the baby's head stretched into a cone shape, until its little nose popped out over the lip. Danny quickly suctioned goo out of the baby's nostrils. Another push and the baby's entire head popped out. Whoa! There's the big head! The infant's head hardly looked human, and I fully understood Bill Cosby's comparison of a newborn to a lizard. She pushed again and the whole baby seemed to slide out of her. This was the most shocking moment of all. Like Mary Poppins pulling a lamp out of her purse, Danny carefully extracted the 5 foot long baby and presented it to a nurse with a towel. It looked like an inflatable blow up toy, and its chalk white rubbery skin looked like something from a Sam Raimi horror flick. Apparently while the baby is squished in the birth canal all the blood is forced to the core, like when you pinch your finger and it turns white. It also had a hint of blue in its skin from minor hypoxia. It didn't even look to me like the baby was alive, but a few squeezes from a suction bulb brought the monster to life. The transformation that happened next was truly incredible. As the nurses toweled off the placental goo, the blood returned to the periphery and the limbs took shape. Soon the baby looked perfectly normal, like any other newborn. What a bizarre first five minutes of life.

While the nurses were tending to the infant, Danny was holding onto the umbilical cord, waiting for the last push and the placenta. The woman summoned all her strength for the last heave ho and out came the large sack of blood soaked tissue. I was startled by how closely it resembled all the drawings I'd seen in my physiology textbooks. What a remarkable organ. I decided that this was the perfect primer for me, with just a couple months away from Ashton having our baby. The rest of the day I was pretty tired from waking up so early two consecutive days, and I followed Danny like a zombie from room to room.

Yesterday was also an awesome shadowing experience. I arrived at TOSH in Murray at 7:15 and changed into scrubs in the locker room. The OR was buzzing like a beehive, with techs and nurses and physicians running from room to room like everything was a race. I followed Kevin, an anesthesiologist, around, and he is at the top of his game.

In all I sat in on two total knee replacements and a couple of knee scopes. I was shocked at how brutal surgery can be. The surgeon was hacking off pieces of bone, pounding in pins and drilling holes in almost a frenzy. Most of the instruments he was using looked like any power tool you'd find in a garage. Everyone participating in the operation was wearing a sweet helmet getup with a special oxygen tank that made them look like something between a HAZMAT worker and a storm trooper. Blood periodically sprayed on their hands and face guards, and chunks of fat and flesh seemed to spill everywhere. Each knee replacement took all of 35 minutes to perform, and the patient was shipped out to the recovery room while the assembly line brought in the next lucky winner. I was amazed at how quick and efficient everything was, like an orthopedic factory.

Shadowing Kevin is always fun because he makes it a stimulating learning experience. Throughout the operations he would pose hypothetical threats to the patients and ask me how I would solve them. He was constantly drawing diagrams and explaining complex principles of physiology, or teaching me what all the different drugs did. Each patient became a case study as we monitored their vitals and periodically infused them with this or that to counteract any negative responses. He even let me insert the LMA into the last patient. I was a little nervous as I tried to open her clenched teeth and feed the tube down into her larynx. He then had me set up the IV drip with antibiotic, which was even more nerve-wrecking than the intubation.

I was surprised at how different my two shadowing experiences could be, and at the wide range of possibilities in medicine. Anesthesiology involves the thrill of the operating room, has great hours and pays exceptionally well. Family practice sees a lot more patients daily, requires constant problem solving and allows for lasting relationships with patients. I'm glad I have a few more years to decide what I want to do.

The Day of Reckoning

2009-05-28T19:36:00.000-07:00

Today was the day I've dreaded for the last 5 years. And I'm so glad it's over! After six months of mind-numbing studying, and an especially grueling month of taking practice tests, I took the MCAT. It's pretty surreal that it's over. I feel like a new man.

I signed up back in January, which apparently was late, because the Utah slots were all filled. I was forced to sign up for a spot in Vegas instead. We drove down to Hurricane Wednesday night and stayed at the Worwoods. I was a little bummed to find that the ducklings, now fully grown, were eaten by raccoons the day before we arrived. We pulled up to the their house to find an animal control officer showing my Uncle Danny how to set a raccoon trap.

This morning we woke up early and drove the remaining two hours to Vegas. We checked in at a crappy motel and dropped by IN-N-OUT for some authentic Western cuisine. I did some last minute cramming and then we drove over to the testing center. The waiting room was crammed with nervous students, and I wasn't impressed with their choice of language. Seriously, these people want to be physicians? Probably plastic surgeons. Checking in required an ID and a biometric fingerprint scan and my mother's maiden name (minus the last one).

The test took 4 and a half hours. I'd taken 14 practice tests, and it didn't feel much different than those, except I'd never taken the time to do the written part. Halfway through the exam there are two writing samples, each a half hour long, and they drained me way more than the physical sciences section. They weren't incredible essays, but the graders don't expect much for a first draft. If it weren't for that dang written portion, I wouldn't have to wait a month for my test results. The biology part was more organic chemistry heavy than I expected, and I was shocked that the physical sciences portion didn't have much acid/base chemistry.

After the exam we drove around the city. Vegas is wack. We hit up H & M, which was pretty small, and got some food. We decided to try to find another mall, called Town Square, and punched the name into the GPS. It directed us to the outer city limits to a gas station that happened to be called Town Square. We decided it wasn't worth it to keep driving around and came back to the motel.

In other news, I milked a goat on Monday. It's harder than I thought to coax the milk out of them goat teats.

Brazilian Tan

2009-05-21T13:55:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday I decided to take a few hours off from studying to surprise Ashton and paint our bedroom. When we first moved in we painted it this horrendous blue color called "Summer Breeze." We were going for an icy blue that would seem almost white, but it ended up looking like a bedroom for a baby boy. We'd wanted to paint it for a while, but both of us have been super busy, and Ashton's at a point in her pregnancy where she probably shouldn't be hanging out in a room full of vapors. So after my lab meeting I made a quick stop at Honk's (88 cent Tuesday!) and picked up some painting equipment. I masterfully taped off the moldings and edges and got painting. I finished first coat just as Ashton got home. She was delighted, as expected, and we decided to head to the temple while we let the walls dry. The new color, "Brazilian Tan," matches our living room, and has a much more soothing effect than the poorly named "Summer Breeze."

On Wednesday we decided to put the crib together, to see how much room it was going to take up, and to see what our options were for rearranging the living room. The crib came with some pretty easy-to-assemble pieces, but the instructions were tiny and confusing, and what should've been a simple task became a four-letter frustration. Finally we got all the pieces to snap into place, and we were shocked to see how big it was. Suddenly our plans to put it by the stairs weren't going to work out. Last night we moved furniture around into a fairly comfortable arrangement, with the couch finally facing the television. It's not as accommodating for guests, and it's a little tighter on space, but it's all right. And it's always refreshing to move the room around.

Tacos

2009-05-14T13:52:00.000-07:00

We're developing quite the little garden in our yard. Ashton's planted numerous flowers, and I'm attempting to grow tomatoes, snap peas and bell peppers.

I got a 38 on a practice MCAT this morning. That always feels good. What if I did that well on the actual test?

My new climbing shoes came in the mail yesterday. I'm stoked to try them out.

The Shins switched out two of their members: Marty Crandall the keyboardist and Jesse Sandoval the drummer. They were replaced by Ron Lewis from Fruit Bats and Joe Plummer from Modest Mouse. Apparently James Mercer wanted to take the band in a different direction. This is really devastating to me. It's not the same band anymore; it's more like a James Mercer solo project. I'll never see the original Shins in concert again. I might be looking for a new middle name for our upcoming baby.

Apparently Sandoval is opening a taco cart in Portland, OR. I want to go get one and express my sadness.

Eggs

2009-05-10T19:34:00.000-07:00

Galya's been sleeping in this little space between a hedge and the house, protected by the back deck. Yesterday I looked at her back there and noticed three white eggs poking out from under her. Upon closer inspection we discovered that she had laid 17 eggs in total, and had been hiding them back there for who knows how long. She has been displaying some erratic behavior, like bobbing her head while darting back in forth in a zigzag "evasive maneuver," and puffing up her chest and ruffling her feathers any time anyone goes back there. Now that we know she's fertile, we might make more trips to the duck pond. . .

Another Funeral Postponed

2009-05-08T12:58:00.001-07:00

A few nights ago I was sitting on my bed, studying for the MCAT, when I hear Ashton yell, "Oh no, it went down the drain!" Then she started yelling my name in a very panicky voice, bordering on hysteria. Oh crap, I thought. She dropped her ring down the kitchen sink. I came out into the living room and she explained, "I accidentally dumped Asher down the drain!" I'll admit I was relieved it wasn't her wedding ring. The death of a 15 cent fish just doesn't make me as squeamish as the thought of losing a diamond (albeit a small one). I could see that Ashton was really distressed, however, and I confess that there was a whole lot of sentimental value that went down the drain with Asher.

We've had Asher since November 5, 2007. He's survived 14 siblings. He officially received the title "Love Fish" when we were dating. I remember a particularly frustrating moment in our relationship, before we got engaged, when I declared that if Asher died, then I was done trying. God blessed that fish to live, and it seemed like he was going to live indefinitely, until a careless mishap sent him to "swim with the fishes."

"Oh wait! I can see him!"

Peering through the hole of the black filter in the sink, we could see light reflecting off Asher's scales.

"He's flopping around!"

He'd now been holding his breath for a good 60 seconds. I pulled the filter out, stuck my hand down the drain, and as carefully as possible picked Asher up. I brought him up and dropped him in a vase of water, and he began swimming around again. He's a tenacious little bugger. We still don't know if he sustained any permanent damage, but he seems to be doing fine so far.

This morning we went back to claim Red Slab. We found out the actual route we were climbing is called the "Mantle Route," and we decided in the interest of safety and time to just top rope it today. I got a couple really good climbs in though, and I came off the mountain a lot more energized than last time. And look how small Greg is in this picture.

Cheng Day 2nd

2009-05-05T20:26:00.000-07:00

Today marked two years since the baptism of Cheng and Jian, my Chinese brothers. It's crazy to think that that much time has already passed. And of all the holidays I created on my mission, Cheng Day is the only one I've remembered to commemorate, because it was quite the monumental day for me. It marked the pinnacle of my mission. Cheng and Jian were the humblest, most sincere investigators I worked with, and teaching them was bliss.

We celebrated by going to P. F. Changs, just like last year. Rather than gorging ourselves on Chinese delights (or their Americanized versions), we stuck with the staple chicken lettuce wraps and Great Wall of Chocolate. It's a tradition I wouldn't mind repeating every year.

God bless you Cheng and Jian!

Auckland and Red Slab

2009-05-03T09:55:00.000-07:00

My little brother got his call to New Zealand this last week. I must say it came as quite a relief. I would've been really jealous if he'd been called to anywhere in Scandinavia or Western Europe. Sure the work is hard in those areas, but they're a lot nicer than Ukraine! When he pulled his call out of the envelope he stared at it with wide eyes while everyone yelled, "C'mon, just tell it what it says!" We had some technical difficulties with the phonecall to Chicago and the webcam to Portland, and he wasn't about to announce it until everyone could hear it. Finally he spilled and we all erupted with congratulations. New Zealand. Snap. Talk about going as far away from home as is physically possible. And crazy that Ashton's brother is currently serving there. Hopefully he can resist the islanders' notoriously lackadaisical approach to the work and rules of a mission.

On May Day we went climbing at Rock Canyon. As we approached the canyon we noticed that, for once, Red Slab was unoccupied, and we decided to give it a try lead climbing. It turned out to be a little tougher than we'd expected. Lead climbing has a way of making a simple 5.8 become a lot scarier. Greg made it up about halfway and got stuck. Some know-it-all chattering moron (who happens to be in my ward) showed up and set up camp right next to us; he even plopped his tarp and rope on top of mine. This newcomer distracted me a little (I was belaying), and as Greg made the brave venture up, he didn't have enough slack. Suddenly he was slipping and yelled down, "I'm gonna fall!" I pulled the rope tight but he was a little higher up than his last quickdraw, so he fell a good 4 feet. He racked the family jewels pretty good on the rock, and came down in a lot of pain. He later told me that all his hate and anger were directed at the chatterbox (which made me feel a little better), but I could tell he was less than thrilled with my belaying. Accidents happen. I went up the wall next to see if I could finish the climb. I got to the tough part where Greg had been stuck and had to take a breather. I was able to get past it, but I only put in two quickdraws after it before I got stuck. The climb wasn't necessarily difficult, but just knowing that if I fell it'd be a good ten foot drop was kind of emasculating. I finally came down the rock, and had to endure the pseudo pep talk from our resident expert, the chatterbox. That guy was insufferable. Everything he said was self-praise or "FYI." Next we sent up Jesse, who had never actually done lead climbing before. He made it to the top like a champ, although he crisscrossed three different routes to do it. By the time he got up there everyone was too cold and tired to do any top rope climbing, and I wanted to get out of chatterbox's earshot. When I got home I was so bitter I shaved my beard.

Garage Sales and Guanacos

2009-04-26T09:49:00.000-07:00

I love garage sales. Yesterday we set a new garage sale record, hitting three awesome piles in just three tries. The first sale was one of those "everything must go" sales where the family was moving. They were a little hampered by the sporadic drizzle of rain, but they covered most of the stuff with tarps every time it started to sprinkle. We found a sweet stand-up mirror that was part of a bedroom set going for several hundred, but the gentleman sold it separately to us for ten bucks.

Energized by our first purchase, we hit the road, looking for more posters on 900 E. Soon we got another bite and we were racing east up Cedar Avenue. From the outside it didn't look like much was going on - just a gazebo on a driveway with a selection that resembled DI's "as is" aisle. The earthy guy guarding it outside told us there was more inside, and as we crossed the threshold we met his equally earthy fiancee. She informed us they were getting married soon and moving to her parents' farm in Portland. Talk about living the dream! She pointed out a camping set with a tent, two sleeping bags and a backpack, originally marked $230, that they were selling for $40. We wrote her a check and hit the road again.

Our next destination was Wymount Central Offices. There weren't any signs directing people that way, but from the main road I saw what looked like a little market on the front lawn. We pulled in and found an international bazaar. Students from all different countries had graduated and were presumably headed back to their native lands, so they were getting rid of a lot of stuff. We met a Russian lady with a Ukrainian husband who was selling the same crib Ashton already purchased for a sixth of the price. We just bought the mattress from them and had a delightful conversation in Russian. We decided we should probably quit while were ahead, and drove home.

After that great start we drove up to Thanksgiving Point with Ashton's family to celebrate her sister's birthday. I love Thanksgiving Point! I get giddy as a schoolboy every time I go there. It was a lot chillier than I anticipated. I always forget about the wind coming off the mountain up there. We hit the farm first, anxious to see all the new animals. To be honest, I was more interested in the enclosures, taking recon photos with my camera phone so that I could build my own someday. We checked out the pygmy goats, guanacos, and llamas, and I decided I wanted all three when I have my farm, maybe even in Portland.

Earth Day

2009-04-23T11:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a pretty wonderful celebration of the outdoors and the end of finals:

- Rock climbing in the morning (two ropes are way better than one)
- Sunflower market for produce
- Monte Bean Museum with Marc, a boy I mentor
- Barbecue in our front yard with Bocci

And the day before that I bought a tomato plant and named him Raul.

It's going to be a good summer, especially when the MCAT is over.

Easter

2009-04-13T21:28:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was probably more hectic than an Easter should be, but it seems like the weekend is the only time to get anything done.

We drove up to Bountiful and got up there around noon, where a beautiful feast of pork roast awaited us. We left my parent's home at 12:45 to go to a good friend's homecoming at 1:00. We walked in, smelling suspiciously of pork, and found Andrew and Mary to sit with. When I sat down I immediately noted all the yahoos sitting in front of us -- the insufferably righteous and smiley Bountiful High alumni who had also come for the homecoming -- and I remembered why I didn't love high school. The homecoming address was short and sweet, and packed with the spiritual maturity appropriate for a just returned missionary from London, South. She was almost as bubbly as a greenie. After the meeting I remarked to her that I was a lot more exhausted when I got home, but of course I was out an additional six months.

After that meeting we returned to my parents' house, where everyone was awakening from their dinner-induced coma. We chatted for a while, and I spouted off about climate change and global warming and tried to convey the immediacy of the problem. It was really the first time I was able to give that sermon even though it had been incubating in my head for the last week. Thank goodness for a polite and earnest audience. I can always count on my parents to listen to my rants and speeches.

At around 4:00 we took off back to Provo to have dinner with Ashton's family. We arrived a little late, but still in time to eat some delicious chicken. We'd stopped at our place so Ashton could change clothes, and we brought Galya along for the ride. Nicholas went nuts when he heard she was there, and he chased her around the yard trying to pet her, exclaiming, "Hi Galya!" While he was distracted by Galya and his aunts' dollhouses, everyone set up an easter egg hunt. It was pretty amusing to watch Nicholas collect the candy-filled eggs scattered all over the living room. We helped him collect the harder-to-reach eggs, and picked up a pretty good stash of our own. Next Leesa hooked everyone up with some sweet Easter baskets, and I got another one from Ashton. I made off like a bandit! Such generous family! Apple beer, mugs, candy . . . what else could I ask for? Nicholas got progressively more wired as he ingested more sugar, and finally everyone packed up. It took several trips to take our loot and duck to the car.

To cap off the day I watched the film Schindler's List. It was my first time seeing it, (and I call myself a film lover) and I was more than impressed. I was captivated for the full three hours. I've seen a lot of World War II movies, but this was definitely the most moving and thought-provoking. It really carried home the message of compassion and charity, and was decidedly appropriate for the holiday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARAH!

Larry

2009-04-12T19:39:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was visited by the ghost of Jacob Marley. I had to go to the library to watch a documentary (An Inconvenient Truth - hardly a documentary. I preferred hearing Al Gore proclaim the dangers of Man-Bear-Pig). It got over around 2:00 and I realized I hadn't had lunch. I wandered over to the Wilk to get some food and as I walked into the Cougareat I ran into a startlingly familiar face. An older gentleman with a BYU t-shirt waddled past me with his walker, and I blurted out a "Hi Larry!"

He quickly answered hello and kept walking towards the terrace. I turned and watched him walk away, confused by this encounter. Last year I had participated in a mentoring program called Best Buddies, in which I met with Larry, a handicapped gentleman, for a few hours a month. Larry is 63 years old. He's bald and pear-shaped, and he has hearing difficulty. He's the happiest, nicest guy you'll meet, even if he doesn't remember you.

I got some food and wondered what Larry was doing on campus. I thought maybe there was some Best Buddies activity going on that day, but I didn't see any other visitors. After I finished eating I walked back out toward the terrace and saw Larry get on an elevator. Where the heck is he going? I wondered. I walked over to the elevator and saw that he'd gone to the 4th floor. I stepped in the adjacent elevator and punched 4. When the doors opened, there was Larry, standing in the hallway, looking very confused.

"Whatcha doing Larry?" I asked. He responded that he was looking for football tickets for the fall.

"Did you take the bus up here?"
"Yeah."

Apparently Larry had been coming up every Saturday looking for football tickets. Unfortunately just about everything is closed on Saturdays, so he hadn't made much progress.

Looking outside at the rain, I wondered how Larry was going to get home. I asked him if I could give him a ride, and he looked at me, a little defeated by the tickets problem, and said, "Okay."

As we walked to the JFSB parking lot in the drizzle, we got reacquainted. I asked him about his sister in American Fork, his mother who's in an Alzheimer's unit, and what he'd been doing since he no longer worked at D.I. I showed him a picture on my phone of him in a Batman costume and asked him if he remembered going to a Halloween party with me.

"Oh!" he blurted out, with a flash of recognition. Five minutes later he'd forgotten who I was again.

We finally got to the parking lot and he yelled with delight as we rose up out of the underground parking onto the rainy roads above. I drove past my house and showed him my duck.

"Hey Galya, this is my friend Larry!" He just laughed and looked away bashfully.

We pulled up to his apartment and I helped him get his walker out of the car. He still had no idea who I was or how I knew where he lived, but he didn't seem to care. He was just glad to be back to his place. We shook hands and I closed the door, wondering why Larry and I had lost touch.

Education

2009-04-10T21:49:00.000-07:00

Mark Twain once said (actually he probably said it all the time) that we shouldn't let our schooling get in the way our education. My research professor tells us that all the time, but then he gives you hot sauce packets from Taco Bell if you answer his questions right.

This last week, despite my super busy end-of-semester-schedule, I decided to not let my schooling get in the way of my education. It turns out that BYU provides students with endless opportunities for learning outside of the class. You just have to filter through the endless handouts and fliers posted on bulletin boards.

On Tuesday I went to a lecture on climate change, the first of a series of three lectures that comprised the university's first sustainability summit. I thought the students who put it on were way to into themselves and some of them seemed more like resume artists than earth savers, but I'll give them credit for bringing out the big guns. They recruited Dr. Handley, a comparative literature professor who's article on environmental stewardship made some pretty serious stirrings in my mind, and Dr. Gill, the university's brand new (and as far as I know only) climatologist. Dr. Handley opened the lecture with some thoughts on stewardship, and he was followed by Dr. Gill.

If all it takes to win the Nobel prize is a sweet powerpoint, then Gill should be a serious candidate. He gave one of the best powerpoints I have ever seen, and provided very compelling evidence for anthropogenic global warming. I left the meeting totally converted and ready to wage war on carbon dioxide. The furor has faded a little, but I'm definitely much more aware, and I'm always itching to tell people about it.

On Thursday I heard that the Ukrainian ambassador was coming to talk about U.S./Ukrainian relations. I split early from my writing class to attend the address. I wasn't dazzled by the guy's command of English (although it was much better than my Russian), but I was very impressed with his optimism. He spoke in pretty blunt terms about Ukraine's desire to become more like the West, as well as their relations to Russian. He was obviously born in Western Ukraine, though, because I didn't meet any Ukrainians who felt like he did.

Also on Thursday I dropped in the library auditorium where they were showing Heima, a documentary about Sigur Ros. I was delighted to see the room fairly hipster-free, and I basked in the purity of Iceland's greatest musicians. I don't care if their whole country went bankrupt; their music gives me goosebumps!

Thursday night I attended the last lecture in the sustainability summit series. Although it wasn't as rousing as Gill's lecture, it provided some interesting insights into the biodiversity in my backyard, or at least the lecturer's backyard. I was hoping he'd talk about composting and gardening, but it turned into a lot of soapboxing and traveloguing. Still, it helped put the problems facing our planet's biodiversity in perspective.

So I guess what I'm saying is it's been nice the last few days to forget about organic chemistry and learn stuff for the sake of learning.

Scandal

2009-04-03T07:27:00.000-07:00

So sometimes I do stuff before I think about the consequences. There are certain things in life you can do only in that impulsive frame of mind. One of them is buying a pet. From guinea pigs to turtles, I have acquired many pets in my life, and I usually regret it. The smell of urine soaked wood shavings and reptilian poop will do that.

Galya joined our family last April, around this time of year. She proved to be quite the handful as a duckling, constantly chirping and doing that excrement thing. She grew pretty fast, however, and became a regular fixture in the yard.

There have been moments when I've regretted buying Galya. Most of those moments were in the winter when she was freezing her tush off and we didn't really know what to do for her. She'd frequently stand out on the front patio quacking to the world about the frigid loneliness of winter. We tried building a duck house, bought her a heating blanket and even considered letting her live in the storage room. Somehow she survived the freezing temperatures, and since the thaw she's been pretty well behaved.

We've tried introducing her to the botany pond south of campus, but it never goes over well. She runs (or swims) from the other ducks, and when we leave her there she wanders into the road or parking lot across the street. Last time we found her a 100 yards east of the pond under a parked car. She's just not fit for the wild. She's forgotten she's a duck.

So we've taken drastic measures. That duck's only chance of making it is to have a friend -- another duck. Yesterday we were doing some shopping before I headed down to Hurricane to shadow my uncle. We were in So Pro and Ashton got a text from her friend who was at the IFA store -- "They have black ducks!" We jetted over there to see them, and before we knew it, we had purchased not only a black duck, but a yellow one too. We figured they'd be good company for each other, and they might have a remedial effect on Galya.

After leaving the store we started to feel the weight of our decision sink in. Yeah, we knew there might be trouble upstairs, but we hoped for a degree of tolerance. Plus ducklings aren't as loud as adults, and they won't disturb the neighbors. We took them home and set up a little cage for them in the bedroom. We wanted to keep it covert for a while, so we put some music on to drown out their chirping. However, the idea of leaving them while I left for shadowing just didn't sit well with me, because if they were discovered, I wanted to be there to explain. So a half hour before I left I made the decision to take them with me.

At 6:40 I was filling up at a gas station with two ducklings in the backseat. We hit the road, and I sang and they chirped in unison with Ben Gibbard and James Mercer. After a long, rainy, windy drive we arrived at my uncle's residence in Hurricane. He was cool with storing my odd cargo in the garage, and I asked him to keep it on the downlow.

7:30 the next morning I got a text from my dad, indicating that they knew. It had leaked on the facebook and there was quite an uproar. Geez. Here I was trying to focus on physician shadowing and my pants kept buzzing with texts pleading with me to abandon my babies. It was annoying, to say the least.

Resolution? Well the wolves must be sated, and my uncle conveniently lives in a rural area with a large plot, a swimming pool, and three kids who are more than willing to take care of Gertrude and Gleb. Am I bitter? Absolutely. But whatever. I'll come see them in May.

Environmental Stewardship

2009-03-29T10:09:00.000-07:00

When questions are asked about the conservation and preservation of the Earth, many members of the LDS Church rely on the belief that the earth will be miraculously healed at the time of the Lord's Second Coming. For many this justifies a careless attitude toward nature. They shrug at the notion of drilling in ANWR or the plight of the planet due to global warming. If we examined some of our core beliefs about our relationship to God and His creations, however, we would quickly see that as Latter Day Saints we have a clear responsibility to be stewards of the environment.

We believe that Jehovah created the earth. 1 Col 1:16 says that, "by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth . . . all things by Him and for Him." Because the earth was created by Jesus Christ, it is a testament of his divinity. Alma taught this to Korihor whe he said, "all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it." Many have felt the whisperings of the Spirit when they are surrounded by God's creations. Every time I go hiking I am amazed a the complexity and beauty of the earth, and it is a powerful witness of the Creator. Joseph F. Smith taught that "Men cannot worship the Creator and look with indifference upon his [creations.] Love of nature is akin to love of God." He also taught that "Nature helps us to see and understand God. To all His creations we owe an allegiance of service and profound admiration."

When God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, He commanded them to "be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." This dominion was given to man, not taken, and it is not license for unrighteous dominion. The warning of D&C 121 is very apparent in the way man has exploited the earth, "We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion." Rather than viewing the environment as subject to us, we should view ourselves as stewards of God's creations. In D&C 104:13, the Lord said, "It is expedient that I, the Lord, should make every man accountable, as a steward over earthly blessings, which I have made and prepared for my creatures." George Handley points out that "it is because we are at the center of God's creation and because we are given stewardship over the earth that we are held moraly responsible and accountable to God for our interactions with all living things." The earth and all living things were created for divinely appointed purposes and our responsibility is to ensure that those purposes are fulfilled.

The Lord promised us, as stewards of the Earth, that as long as we are wise and righteous, there will always be enough resources. In D&C 104:17, the Lord says, "The earth is full, and there is enough to spare; yea I prepared all things." In D&C 59:16-20, the Lord says,

16 Verily I say, that insasmuch as ye do this, the fulness of the earth is yours, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and that which climbeth upon the trees and walketh upon the earth;
17 Yea, and the herb, and the good things which come of the earth (petroleum?), whether for food or for raiment, or for houses, or for barns, or for orchards, or for gardens, or for vineyards;
18 Yea, all things which come of the earth, in the season thereof, are made for the benefit and the use of man, both to please the eye and to gladden the heart;
19 Yea, for food and for raiment, for taste and for smell, to strengthen the body and to enliven the soul.
20 And it pleaseth Go that he has given all things unto man; for unto this end were they made to be used, with judgment, not to excess, neither by extortion.

As long as we are prudent and do not overexploit our resources, the Lord has given the fulness of the earth to us. However, if we condone greed and gluttony, we risk losing those blessings.

We do believe that the Earth will receive its paradisiacal glory in the millennium. This does not mean that when the Lord comes again He will simply fix all the problems we have created. We must avoid the "myths of millennial cleanup" which justify inertia and inaction. We can't assume the planet will be miraculously restored. We know that it will be renewed, but we dont' know if that renewal will be automatic or instantaneous. It might require as much as careful, dedicated work as the original planting of the Garden of Eden. We might spend as much as time gardening as we will doing temple work. Brigham Young taught that restoring the earth to a pristine condition is what the Lord requires of the Latter Day Saints. He also taught that only after the Saints had learned to live in harmony as stewards one with another and with the earth could they expect to inherit it from the Lord who owns it. We might as well get a move on it.

Vampires

2009-03-28T19:41:00.000-07:00

Last night I did a very emasculating thing . . . I watched Twilight. Wow. We were talking about something to do and decided to have a theme night. We bought some garlic bread and strawberry daiquiris, and my brother-in-law made some amazing roasted garlic potato soup. I wasn't expecting much from the movie, and I wasn't disappointed. What tawdry garbage! I can see why women of all ages love it. Who hasn't fantasized about an icy, undead demigod with sparkling skin? Steve pointed out that his sparkling skin looked more like sweat than diamonds, but whatever. The movie did provide a plethora of comedic fodder, and would be perfect for Mystery Science Theater. We ourselves got a little carried away in lampooning the film, forgetting that some people in the room actually liked it . . .

I don't think vampire movies are inherently bad though. Quality writing and cinematography can make any story interesting to watch. Two weeks ago I watched the coolest vampire movie ever, Let the Right One In. It was made in Sweden, and told a refreshingly beautiful story while still incorporating the classic vampire elements, like a vampire bursting into flames when exposed to sunlight. The film depicts the relationship between a young boy, Oskar, who is constantly bullied at school and a young vampire girl named Eli. Of course the boy doesn't know she's a vampire, initially, but when he does find out their relationship is far too interdependent to sever. The movie ends with some sweet payback to the bullies, as well as some ambiguity as to Eli's true identity. Overall it was very surreal and bizarre, but the production design and photography were incredible. I give it 4 stars.

Hurst

2009-03-17T21:17:00.000-07:00

Earlier this evening I was at my MCAT prep course, and I got a phonecall. Slightly annoyed that someone was calling me during my class, I pulled my phone out and was startled by the name on the phone: Hurst. My initial impression was to just put my phone back in my pocket and call him back at the end of class, but then I remembered how sporadic and unpredictable Hurst is, and I realized he could be driving through Provo that very minute. Since returning from Ukraine, we had tried to connect a couple times, but we'd never succeeded. With a certain degree of panic I jumped out of seat during class and dashed out the door to take the call.

Turns out my instincts served me well. Hurst was in the area, and he wanted to drop by tonight. I got all giddy on the phone and insisted he come by at 8:30. I gave him the address and went back to my class. Class wasn't supposed to end til 9:00, but I finished my test early and checked my answers with the teacher and I was on my way.

Hurst drove up with his fiancee, Natalie, and I met them outside on the street. I'd forgotten how much taller he was than me, and gave him a big man hug. This was a man who had a profound influence on me in Ukraine. My experience there would've been very different if I hadn't met him, and he became one of my best friends out there.

Hurst came to Ukraine when I was still a youngster in the mission. He was assigned to Mariupol, where I was currently serving. Since he was now officially the newest person in our city, I felt a special responsibility to help him adjust to the new life. On the busride from Donetsk to Mariupol I asked him what his favorite band was. "The Shins," he said. I almost peed my pants. What's your favorite movie? "Rushmore." I knew I was going to love this guy.

Hurst was older than all of us, and had a lot more life experience. At 24 he'd been working on his doctorate, and then one day decided to serve a mission. He was an expert in British history, and would often tell us long, drawn out stories of this battle or that. He rapidly became a beloved addition to the mission.

I had the good fortune of serving with Hurst again in the small city of Sumy. This was a particularly difficult time of my mission because I had issues with my assigned companion, but Hurst saved my life with his good humor and down-to-earth philosophy on life. He is one of those people you just can't make mad, and if he does get a little annoyed, it blows off pretty fast. We had some good times up in that ridiculous city.

Fortune smiled on us again at the end of my mission when I was assigned to the city of Donetsk. First I was Hurst's zone leader in outpost of Obyedinoni when he was in Makeevka, so I received phonecall reports from him every night. After six weeks there I was moved to center Donetsk, and we were able to go on exchanges and hang out often. We'd talk about movies and music and life, and he'd shop second hand stores for me to find Lacoste items. I still have a sweet tie and multiple shirts and sweaters thanks to that man.

I hadn't seen Hurst since July 2007, so it was an amazing delight to get to see him and meet his fiancee tonight. It was a refreshing reminder that people are really the only thing that matter in this life, and Hurst is one person I want to see again. So I guess this was a salute to Hurst.

Y

2009-03-12T20:06:00.001-07:00

Forgive me for not writing about this yesterday. I was swamped with homework and I fried my brain. Writing isn't very fun when your brain is smoking.

So Ashton picked me up at 11:45 to head to the OB clinic. Usually that place is packed with women with bulging bellies, but yesterday we hit a good time. We were invited to descend into the basement where the ultrasound tech was waiting for us. She had Ashton climb up on the reclined bed and I sat down next to her. Then my mind was polluted with some images from the movie Juno, as I thought, "This is just how they were sitting. . . except their tech was a jerk."

The tech squirted a bunch of hair gel on Ashton's belly and turned off the lights. The Christmas morning anticipation began to build up as we awaited the first images of our unborn. The tech placed the knob on Ashton's abdomen, and some fuzzy amorphous images popped up on the screen. She rubbed it around and I tried to orient myself. Just weird blurs and inkspots. Oh, oh a hand! A beautifully crafted miniature hand, with jointed fingers and a palm! The hand was surprisingly distinct, and then the baby pulled it back into the abyss of Ashton's uterus.

The novelty wore off after about five minutes. I sat impatiently, watching the tech take measurements and label the placenta, yada yada yada. I really just wanted to know the gender, and this tech was acting like she had all day. Nervous anticipation began building again, and the wait was torturous. Finally the tech paused the frame and asked, "Are we wanting to know what it is?" Well we're assuming it's a baby. Yes! Tell us what it is already! That's really what we're paying you for! I mean, I was glad that it had all its limbs and seemed to be a normal size, but I really just wanted the coin toss to be over. The tech pointed at the frame and said, "Now that's a leg there, that it's got up, so it's blocking our view . . . " and then she pointed down and to the left, "And that's a little boy part."

A little boy part! A phallus. a water pistol, a Y chromosome magnified a million times! The implications are endless. My progeny will carry the Jenkins name! He will have the birthright! The rest of our children will have an older brother, an example, a whipping boy. He'll be a future priesthood holder, a missionary, and one day a father like me. I like this kid already.

It should be noted that we were kind of hoping for a girl, just because we already had a name picked out. The battle for boy names has yet to be resolved. We'll probably have to put it to a vote to avoid a bloody conflict.

Funeral Postponed

2009-03-02T12:06:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we were outside trying to change the license plates on the Camry. One of the bolts was too rusted and stripped to get out so we had to improvise. While we were working on this, we let Galya out to hang out on the lawn with us. Usually we keep her in the backyard so she doesn't peck on our windows with her muddy beak, and there's been some weirdos coming around to play with her late at night. Anyway, she was out on the lawn with us taunting the boxer puppy across the street. The boxer was going nuts, prancing and whimpering and running to the end of her leash. We watched her with amusement and continued jimmyrigging the license plate. In a flash the boxer was across the street and in our yard, practically on top of Galya. She had bolted hard enough that her collar had popped off, and she sprinted after the duck. Galya let out quacks of distress and flapped her wings as she darted back and forth. She was surprisingly elusive, but the boxer increased in her tenacity and we were forced to intervene. I blocked the dog while Ashton scooped up Galya. We put her in the safety of the backyard and turned to deal with the dog. The boxer was so worked up at this point that she ran down our stairs and into our basement apartment. Apparently someone had left the door open. I flew down the stairs and yelled at her to get out, and she promptly dashed back up the stairs and across the street. We couldn't help but laugh at the whole ordeal, and were glad Galya lived to see another day -- until she started quacking at 7:00 a.m. the next day . . .

Dental Emergencies

2009-02-28T20:36:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I was nibbling on a fingernail (gross, I know, but it's a habit) and suddenly my bottom incisor crumbled. I looked at my finger and there were three or four chunks of tooth perched on the tip. My tongue involuntarily found the now jagged incisor, and my eyes widened with dismay. I took off to the bathroom and looked in the mirror to confirm the disaster. I had no idea teeth could do that.

Later that night we were babysitting three boys for a family I home teach. In my opinion, you're not being a good babysitter unless you get a little rowdy with the kids, so of course I didn't oppose them tearing all the cushions and pillows off the couch to dive into. Things were going fine until the four year old jumped onto the two year old and smashed his mouth. Within seconds he was bawling and I was trying to access the damage. His gums were bleeding a little, and the more I tried to help him the more he screamed. Just then his grandmother arrived, and hearing his screams, began pounding on the door and shouting his name. We opened the door and she rushed into the room shouting, "What happened?" and wrapping her arms around the unfortunate kid. This lady was something else. She was your classic social worker who probably needs a social worker, and she certainly didn't help deescalate the situation. She kept making references to his tooth falling out or breaking off, which only intensified his crying. "He's going to have to see the orthodontist or get a root canal!" she howled. My wife rushed to the store to buy some popsicles while I stayed with the lunatic grandma and child, trying to calm them both down. In the end the popsicles were an inspired idea, and the moment he got one in his mouth, the floodgates turned off and he said, "My tooth doesn't hurt anymore." Talk about theatrics.

Rock, Paper, Scissors

2009-02-15T19:04:00.000-08:00

Last night I played the highest stakes game of rock, paper, scissors of my life. One of our residents needed a new bag for his colostomy. I rummaged through boxes in his room looking for one, but the only stocked bags had open bottoms and required a clamp. I ran all over the building looking for a clamp but returned empty-handed.

I asked my charge nurse what I should do. He looked me very solemnly and said, "You'll have to empty it, wash it out and re-use it." My eyes narrowed with incredulity, and we stared at each other for about ten seconds. The nurse could see my hesitation, and, with a little cockiness in his voice, announced, "I'll rock, paper, scissors you for it."

I laughed. Louder than I should've had at 2:30 in the morning in a nursing home. "Okay," I replied. "Let's go."

We faced each other in the hallway, and I assumed my best rock, paper, scissors stance.

1,2,3! My scissors beat his paper. 1,2,3! Both scissors. 1,2,3! His paper beats my rock. 1,2,3! Both rock. 1,2,3! I drop scissors, he drops rock.

It was a defeat which had a very particular smell to it.

Creation and Evolution

2009-02-11T18:44:00.000-08:00

I attended a lecture today entitled "An Approach to Understanding the Purpose of the Creation Accounts." It's part of the series of lectures dedicated to Darwin's birthday (which is tomorrow). Many people, myself included, were led to believe that it would discuss evolution in the context of the Creation because the official announcement said the lecture was titled, "An Approach to Understanding the Creation." A subtle difference, but an explicit example of false advertising. My guess is they really wanted to fill the seats, and they did. Unfortunately not everyone left satisfied.

It was given by Terry Ball, Dean of Ancient Scripture at BYU. The room was totally packed, with people sitting in the aisles, on the floors and standing around the perimeter and out in the halls listening. Luckily I got there ten minutes earlier, anticipating such a crowd. Apparently everyone wanted to understand a religion professor's take on evolution. Unfortunately that wasn't the thrust of the lecture. Dr. Ball talked about the importance of understanding what kind of questions the creation accounts actually answer. He made it very clear that the accounts were given to answer the questions of "Why?" and "Who?" The earth was made for the children of God to inhabit, to keep their second estate, and it was created by Jesus Christ, and likely by others with Him. Of course I already knew the answers to these questions, but it was an interesting point.

At the end of the lecture Dr. Ball opened it up for questions. Finally the hungry wolves were loosed and hands shot up everywhere. It didn't seem like anyone could tactfully phrase their question well enough, because everyone sounded like the devil's advocate. Questions were asked about the vast time period required for evolution to occur, the Fall of Adam and whether the accounts were figurative. Dr. Ball sidestepped most of their questions and usually turned them into hilarious jokes.

For instance, when a man asked if Adam was really 900 something years old, Dr. Ball said, "We don't know for sure. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. If I was betting YOUR temple recommend on it, I'd say he was." That got a pretty good response.

One difficult question that he fielded was about the human pedigree. What are we to think of the fossils of primitive hominids that resembled men, which are dated several million years ago? He made it clear that the Church has one position on the origin of Man, and that is that we were created by God and in His image. BYU put together a packet back in 1992 to help biology students gain some insights into the Church's position, commonly referred to as the "Origin of Man" packet. This packet contains official statements from prophets, especially Joseph Fielding Smith, and the only time it actually mentions the word "evolution" is in a statement that "man is evolving into a god." He then stated his personal opinion is that there were pre-Adamite hominids, and that they had evolved from other species, but when God created Adam, he was creating a new species. However related to those other hominids man is by his DNA, he was still created by God and in His image.

Another interesting question he answered was related to the Garden of Eden. How can one simultaneously believe in evolution as the engine for Creation and the Garden of Eden, in which nothing could die? Evolution and speciation can't happen if animals aren't dying.

Of course he couldn't give a definitive answer to this, and he made it very clear that Church doesn't have an official position on it. He said that there are two prevalent theories that circulate throughout our church and among other Christians. One is called the "It is good" theory. It basically states that God created the first organisms and let them evolve to a point that He thought, "It was good," and then He placed the Earth in a paradisiacal state, including the Garden of Eden. Then Adam and Eve were placed in the garden, and the rest is history.

The other theory is called the "40 acre" theory, which basically states that the Garden of Eden was an isolated patch of paradise in the midst of a world that was still evolving. While they lived in the garden animals were reproducing, dying and speciating. When Adam and Eve fell, they were expelled out into that lone and dreary world. Both are compelling to me, but I'm more inclined to go with the latter theory.

When all is said and done, however, we really can't figure it out on our own. If God ever wants to reveal the hows and whats of the Creation, He'll do it through His prophet. I personally don't think we'll learn this mystery till we're resurrected. Dr. Ball agreed and made the remark that we'd learn it all in Godhood 695 R. "It is an R class," he said.

ORCA

2009-02-10T10:39:00.000-08:00

The Office of Research and Creative Activities sent me an e-mail yesterday saying I was awarded a grant for a proposal I submitted back in November. The total award is 1500 bucks, but I'm splitting it with a lab buddy who also worked on the project. He came up with the idea, and I wrote the grant proposal. Today we joked around that he paid me 750 bucks to write a grant for him, and I said I bought the idea from him for 750 bucks. Whatever the case, neither of us actually thought back in November that we'd get the money. Our professor required us to submit a proposal as part of the overall research process. I was brand new to the lab, and a little frantic because I had no idea what my research options were. My fellow labster came up with a decent idea, which my professor helped flesh out, and I offered to help write the grant for it. It turned out I wrote the whole proposal (and it was pretty good, if I say so myself) and we turned it in. Assignment completed. I'd totally forgotten about it and last week they contacted my buddy to get some of his personal info. We got all excited and waited nervously as they continued moving back the date of announcing grant recipients. And then, BOOM! Yesterday I checked my e-mail, and there it was.

Now how do I spend 750 bucks? You'd assume that I would spend the money on research. Our lab is already plenty funded. My professor is an expert proposal writer and gets us money from National Science Foundation and all over. He tells us if we get a grant, it's "pizza money." I don't think I could stomach 750 bucks worth of pizza, but I have considered buying 750 onesies for my unborn child, or 1500 cans of soda. When it comes down to it, though, I'm sure it'll go to the nebula I call savings.

Hemingway

2009-02-08T12:37:00.000-08:00

Last night marked another wonderful graveyard shift at the nursing home. For the last few weeks they've been putting me at the west nurse's station, which is the rehabilitation unit. Most of the residents there have acute issues and are usually recovering from surgeries or respiratory illnesses. This makes for a much more alert and coherent crowd, and that keeps the call lights ringing all night.

I've been trying to finish up A Farewell to Arms, but over the last month or so I've been averaging about ten pages a shift because the residents keep me busy. For whatever reason, I wasn't super swamped last night, and I found time to finish the second half of the book.

When my charge nurse saw me reading A Farewell to Arms, he started to harass me. "Please tell me you're reading that for a class! Why would you ever read Hemingway?! I can judge so much about your character just by the fact you're reading Hemingway." This from the guy who listens to School House Rock and Bloodhound Gang on his i-Pod.

"Why don't you like Hemingway?"
"He's sooo depressing! Think of the most miserable unhappy ending to any plot, and you've got a Hemingway story."

True, most of Hemingway's stories are filled only with drinking, smoking, somber dialogue and failing relationships. I guess that's why they call it the Lost Generation. Something about his writing, however, is still very engaging and enjoyable. It's a unique style of prose, and sometimes the inebriated conversations are quite insightful.

My charge nurse hadn't read A Farewell to Arms, but he insisted that I come up with the worst possible conclusion for the book, and that would be the actual ending. With 50 pages to go, I predicted the death of Catherine's baby. I thought it would be a little over the top to predict Catherine's death too, and I was holding on to a shred of hope that she'd survive the book.

With 4 pages to go, the Catherine's nurse explains to Henry that the baby is stillborn. No surprise there. Surely, I thought to myself, with 3 pages to go, Catherine will live. Imagine my dismay when on the second-to-last page, Catherine suffers severe hemorrhaging and dies in the matter of a paragraph. You've done it again, Hemingway. And there's my charge nurse, dancing to Wolf Creek Pass, and gloating at the fulfillment of his prophecy.

Evolution

2009-02-07T11:53:00.000-08:00

I've been writing a paper for my Writing Fellows class about how I learned to write. An absurd topic to be sure. Essentially the narrative goes like this: I learned to write. The end. I'll be sure to insert amusing anecdotes about the first "adult" book I read (Congo) and the crooked finger of the infamous Nona. The overall theme of the paper will parallel my own writing discovery process with the evolution of man. A neanderthal desires creative expression, invents tools, learns to control fire, and develops agriculture. Lost? Well the paper will be awesome.

This raises some interesting questions for me. I recently subscribed to Scientific American, which is a pretty dang good collection of recent scientific breakthroughs and cutting-edge discoveries. As the upcoming week is the celebration of Darwin's 200th birthday, this month's issue is all about evolution, and is aptly named the "Evolution of Evolution." It features several articles about the science behind evolution, the ramifications of Darwin's theory, and of course, a little snippet about the Human pedigree. It was the latter article that gave me the idea for my writing assignment. Flipping through the timeline of man, as supposed by science, is very fascinating. The article itself declares the facts as if little doubt exists, and to be honest, in the scientific community, there is no doubt. We evolved from apes, end of story. This can be supported by countless DNA analyses, which reveal that our DNA is essentially the same as a chimpanzee's except where they have two chromosomes, we have one, likely the result of a chromosome fusion. The only real difference between our genes and those of our charming animal counterpart is the timing in which they are expressed. But when it comes down to the A's, T's, C's and G's, we're practically identical.

As a biologist, I'm very tempted to accept this. Clearly there are some major connections between humans and apes. But to accept that we descended from them, as Darwin later published, would be to deny that God himself created man and placed him on the earth. It's a difficult concept to reconcile, and requires a degree of faith, or blindness, as scientists would call it. Is it possible that God allowed man to naturally evolve, using the laws of science to bring about His plan? This would fall in more closely with the idea of Intelligent Design, which suggests that there is a higher being at the helm, a Creator who is also the Supreme Scientist. I'm more inclined to this latter theory, but it still doesn't jive completely with LDS doctrine.

In high school I was converted to the idea that evolution is real. It's really undeniable. Natural selection really does motivate the development of divergent species. You can see it everywhere in the world around us, and to reject this clear occurence is not only blind, it's just plain ignorant. The fact that DNA mutates and some mutations result in favorable traits propels the engine of life. But how do I understand where the creation of Man comes in? I've always assumed that the rest of the life on earth did evolve, gradually, but that Man, the crowning achievement in creation, was placed on the earth last, in the midst of the evolving animal kingdom.

Once in the biology lab I was discussing with my lab supervisor various evolutionary biology projects going on at BYU. There are several professors engaged in the Tree of Life project, which is trying to sequence the genomes of all animals to create a super phylogenetic tree which shows how life evolved on earth. This struck me as a bit odd, that BYU professors would be involved in this kind of project, and I asked him, "How do they reconcile that with the Gospel? Do they really believe that we evolved from primordial soup, from a one-celled organism?" He responded, with a hint of disdain in his voice, "Well I'm not LDS, so I don't have to worry about that." He said, with a little bit of incredulity, that of course he believed we evolved from prokaryotes; he's an evolutionary biologist, for crying out loud! I felt truly defeated and more than a little embarrassed for assuming that everyone thinks like I do.

This upcoming week at BYU several renowned professors from around the country are coming to speak about Evolution. I'd really like to attend some lectures to gather more perspective and information about the subject, to formulate my own opinion. My lab mentor, a distinguished evolutionary biologist, regularly suggests that the ideas of evolution can be reconciled with the gospel, but he never elaborates on the idea. I'm hoping this next week will shed some light on the idea and close the gap of confusion for me.

A Fresh Start

2009-02-05T21:40:00.001-08:00

When I was a freshman, I started a blog. It seemed like a cool thing to do. I wrote pretty avidly throughout that year, and what remains is a fairly good account of what happened that year. As I reviewed the 90 or so posts from that era of my life, I was a little disturbed by how much of them were about girls. Granted, I was not married and my love life was of great concern to me. It's pretty normal to write about what occupies your mind, so I shouldn't be surprised. Now I'm married, however, and lots of petty entries about this girl and that girl don't really seem like an appropriate piece of history to lug around anymore. It's okay to let those kinds of memories fade away, because they don't really contribute to the future. So I'm cutting off that anchor and pushing off to open waters. I don't guarantee that I'll suddenly write about things that matter. I sure hope not, anyway. I'll write about significant events and the truths that life has taught me. And I'm sure I'll share a lot of stupid stories.

Archie has graduated.