So
let me guess. You’re here to read about my life. Well, you’ve come to the right
place. Quite a lot of crazy shenanigans have been happenin’ lately, so I am
going to share some of my experiences over the past few days with you. For your
convenience, I am going to provide with both the short version and the long
version, and you may choose which you would like to read.
June:
I’m
not working the next show at the Scera, so I don’t have to work every evening
this month. Instead I’d like to try out some freelance bagpiping or something
and see how I fare. I’m going to single’s ward now, and I don’t really know anybody
in that ward, but my stake is awesome. Institute is also really fun, so you
should all come. I’ve been doing a lot of cool stuff like running and swimming
and such, and going to seven peaks and overall just adventuring Provo because
there are still things I don’t know about it. Also I’m getting good at chess.
Challenge me, if you dare.
Lately:
Short
Version:
Last
Saturday I got to go boating with Kate and it was super awesome but it made me
really sore, and it was great. After that I went to the quadruple birthday
party thing, but I didn’t really do much there because I was so wiped out from
boating. On Monday I played some Frisbee which further exhausted me. I love
Frisbee. On Tuesday I got to go to see DCI! Yay! I love DCI; it’s rather
exciting. But anyway, I didn’t get back from that until about midnight, and at
that point I went down to my family’s parade spot to guard it and protect my
cousins from all the crazies gallivanting around the town. And holy cow, I’ve
never seen so many completely insane people. Why in the world would hundreds of
people yell and scream and party into 3 in the morning?! That was complete
insanity. So basically I got to sleep at 4:30. The next morning I woke up at
5:30 to get ready to run the Freedom Run! This was my first time running a 5K
off of 1 hour of sleep, but I still managed to improve my time by more than 2
minutes. Which is not half bad. Anyway, after that I went to the parade and
yelled cheery things at the Timpview band when they played. That night I
watched the fireworks for stadium of fire out on my Grandparents’ lawn (which
has a picture perfect view, by the way.) Also my car got stranded a block away from
my house due to stadium traffic. The next morning I woke up and got to go to
Lagoon with the Timpview Band (they needed another chaperone) so all day I was
partying there and just having a grand old time. Friday/Saturday I went camping
with my family and got to see some epic dinosaur bones and schwim in a
reservoir. Basically I could sleep for a week right now, and I’ve had the best
week ever.
Long Version
Alright,
here I go. Lots of writing. Yay! So the boating last Saturday was a total
party, and you should look at the pictures on Facebook because they’re probably
much more exciting than whatever I may be writing here. Basically it was Kate’s
parents, Kate, Cami, Riley, John W, and myself all having a total party out on Utah
lake. We didn’t do any wakeboarding or anything (except for Riley who somehow
managed to wrangle himself onto someone else’s boat) but we did do a lot of
tubing. At first we had two tubes, but then we switched them out for a bigger
one that you could stand up on and was super intense, which at one point we fit
all us kids onto and had tube battles of craziness. The water was warm and
wonderful (except for some weird cold patches) and the sun was magnificent. Story!
Riley and I were on the big tube (Cami and Kate and John were floating off in
the water somewhere) and Kate’s Dad was trying to throw us licorice, but it
generally ended up sinking to the bottom of the lake. A few tries in he threw
one and I jumped after it and managed to catch it before it sank to the bottom.
I got it back on the tube then yelled back “Thirty second rule!” Sometimes I’m
funny. And no, I didn’t actually eat it. Nasty water. But anyway, I want to go
boating much more often now.
Last
Saturday evening there was a quadruple birthday party for four of my fantastic
friends, and it was super great because so many people were there! Many of whom
I missed very much due to not seeing them previously in the summer. I was very
tired, so I did not participate in the volleyball shenanigans and such, but I
did play some people at chess (and I didn’t do great at that, either.) There
was also good food there; particularly watermelon. I feel like I like
watermelon a lot more than most people do. But hey, I’m fine with that. Also there
should be more parties of that variety.
Monday
night Frisbee was wonderful. I need to play more often. I discovered that it’s
really hard to judge how far one of the light-up Frisbees is going to go
because you can only see the one dot and not the angle or anything, so I’m
going to have to practice night-time play.
On
Tuesday night I went to see DCI (for those of you who don’t know, this is Drum
Corpse International, and it’s basically professional marching bands.) For some
reason I had a staff ticket, so I was sitting in the nice seats next to Mr.
Hearld, but I wanted to see the shows from higher up, so at intermission I went
and sat up next to the band. There was a band there called the Crusaders that I
absolutely loved. I can’t believe I haven’t heard of them before, because they
were pretty darn good. I also really liked Phantom Regiment this year, and I
was sad that the Cadets weren’t there because last year they were so good! I
think the shows were a little less exciting than last year, but they were still
amazing. Most of them just had weird or lame music like SCV. DCI made me excited
to visit Timpview during Fall Band. It’s going to be odd not performing with
them.
After
DCI, at around 12:30 AM I believe, I went down to our parade spot, which was
next to Seven Eleven. At Seven Eleven there were hundreds of hoodlums crazily
partying, surrounded by police officers watching for trouble. There were also
crazies cruising the streets on bikes or scooters or in cars or even atop
segways, and nutters just walking around looking for some “fun.” I was
completely astonished by the level of unwise activities going on as late as 4
in the morning. I really had no idea that south Provo got that insane on the
night before the fourth. Where did all those people come from, and why weren’t
they at home in their beds asleep?! Anyway, I had to stay up to guard all my
cousins from some of those sketchy people, and plus it was too loud and bright
to conceivably sleep anyway (except somehow my cousin Ashley slept through
everything. I’m still impressed by that.) That last thing I heard before I
slept for maybe an hour was “let’s go get breakfast now” from a passing
stranger.
After
my little nap I went home and changed into my little freedom run shirt and
drank some juice or something, and then I went to the starting line of the
race. I felt kind of sick from not sleeping, but I’ve felt worse and still run,
so I was not deterred. The actual race was really fun, and the course was
exciting because I saw so many friendly familiar faces along the parade route! I
kept trying to talk to the people running with me, but none of them would say
anything back, and I’m pretty sure they all thought I was a weirdo. My final
time was 26 minutes and 42 seconds, which I guess is okay. I might run another
one on the 14th and try to break 25 minutes. Afterward they gave us
powerade and ice cream sandwiches and stuff, so obviously I couldn’t have been
happier.
When
I was done eating ice cream sandwiches (which I didn’t know was possible until
that day [being done, I mean.]) I went to watch the actual parade. It was really fun to see my Timpview
band march by and get to see what it actually looks like, but I missed marching
in it. Overall the parade was more boring than I thought it would be. I wished
I could have seen the bands for longer and everything else for not as long.
Actually there was some other awesome stuff, like some girls doing acrobatics
on horses (not quite as cool as horseback archery, but great all the same), and
I couldn’t argue with pretty girls on floats smiling and waving at me, but I
wasn’t much interested in politicians in old cars driving by or sirens blaring
in my face. I also got to beat some second cousins at chess, though, so it was
good.
That
night I got to chill with my cousins some more and watch the awesome stadium
fireworks, which I would say were the best fireworks that I’ve ever seen. Basically
I just love my family. They’re great. And my grandpa is a fantastic cook and root
beer brewer. After that I was going to help kidnap Dani for her birthday, but
the traffic was so horrendous that I could hardly get two blocks home. Every
time there’s a game or something like this cars park all along both sides of
the street all over my neighborhood so that only one car can fit between them,
and then cars try to go both ways through and it’s a nightmare.
Chaperoning the band Lagoon day on the
fifth of July was just plain amazing. I’m so happy that I got to see so many of
my little band friends again! Most of the day I hung out with Derek and Nate
and Allison and Daniel, and we probably had the most fun out of anyone there.
We considerably cheered up all the poor people who have to run all of those
theme park game things by talking to them, and we nearly made Nate throw up from
spinning in the spinny cup on the merry-go-round. We did that last year too,
and almost made Nick sick. Oh, good times. Anyway, some of the rides at Lagoon
are starting to seem slightly boring and slow, as opposed to when I was scared
to death of them when I was small. I really want to try the catapult thing, but
it’s really expensive. Bleh. Oh well. I still have fantastically fun days every
time I go. I very much like intense rides and spinning stuff. And I cannot get enough of that awesome funnel cake! Also, Nate, you still owe me $10. Actually 12 because of the other 2 I lent you to get in.
On
Friday I went camping with my family, and Robert and I had to sleep in a tent
because there’s not room for all of us to sleep in the RV. After we got in the
tent it started to pour, and the rainfly started leaking. Also the tent smelled
weird from some scout campout. Robert and I were laughing for like half an hour
because it was so awful. Luckily the rain stopped and we managed to be mostly
dry by morning.
The
next morning we got to go swimming in the reservoir (I forgot which one, but it
was somewhere near Duchesne, I think.) The water was very cold, but it was
still fun, because there were really cool rocks in it and even some ammonite
fossils (nothing like the ones we found in Myrup’s field Ecology class though.)
After that we went to two different dinosaur museums, and I got to see more
real fossils than I ever have before. Really, it was stunningly awesome. I felt
like a legit paleontologist, only I didn’t have to do the boring stuff like
coat bones in plaster. Anyway, I had a ridiculously awesome week. I love
adventuring. J