thunderstorms
i had forgotten that people outside of California actually get rain and thunderstorms from time to time. O.O this morning at around 3 am, i found myself randomly awake, looking at the clock. annoyed, i rolled over on my side to go back to sleep, but not before catching flashes of light outside my window. i lay there and watched for a bit just to make sure i wasn't crazy, and sure enough, some more flashes, followed by low rumbling sounds. at first i was like "eh? flashes and loud noises? bombs?" and then i finally remembered "ah, lightning and thunder, oh yeah i remember that stuff now." :P we got some REALLY spectacular storms in Michigan and Wisconsin when i lived there.
ok, so today, the same thing. i'm here at work and all of a sudden, the power is gone for a few seconds. a couple seconds later - *BOOM boom boom boom...* awesome. absolutely rad. :D as long as it doesn't do more than lightning and thunder, i'll be ok. no tornadoes, no hurricanes, nothing like that. :P speaking of which, if any of my loyal readers are in or anywhere near where Rita's expected to make landfall, GET THE HECK OUT. this isn't a game, and it's not going to be pretty. don't be macho, just suck it up and evacuate. *nods*
right. time to go to class.
demolition derby!
wow this past weekend was awesome. my roomie's fiancee, Reed, is the coolest guy ever, always inviting the rest of us to do stuff with them and their other friends, and i'm convinced that it's pretty much always a good idea to do whatever they invite us to do. Saturday evening, he calls us up and says "hey, you guys wanna go to a demolition derby in Ashton?" at first, Camilla and i were like "hmmm, i dunno..." but he managed to convince us since he was willing to drive us and didn't expect gas money or anything. so we went. i'd never been to a demo derby before, so i was looking forward to it by the time we got in the car and headed out. and i wasn't disappointed, lemme tell ya. it may have been in a little hick town and the cars were definitely craptastic, but it was so freakin awesome. the drivers reinforced their engines pretty dang well, so there weren't any big explosions like that, but there were plenty of blown radiators and the steam was sure flyin. i hope my pics turn out because there was seriously enough steam at times to completely block the view of the destruction. there was a really old Honda Accord in one of the heats, and someone hit his front right corner so hard that it popped the tire, and really loudly. :D also, in the finals at the very end, the last two running cars got stuck on each other up against the gate, and they were trying so hard to get out of it that one of the engines caught on fire! i REALLY hope that pic turned out. hehe...fire! :P the officials all ran out and tried to put it out and they had to get the water truck out it was so bad! good times. don't worry, the drivers were just fine, laughing and patting each others' backs about the whole thing.
yup, i'll try anything at least once, especially if Reed suggests it. *thumbs up*
spiders = teh suck *shudders*
so last night, i was just minding my own business, lying on my bed and surfing the net on my laptop, when out of the corner of my eye, something large and creepy goes scurrying out from behind the laptop towards my arm. i fell out of bed in my haste to avoid it, waking my almost-asleep roommate. she was like "um, what the heck are you doing weirdo?" with me half-laughing, still creeped out on the floor. i peer over the edge to see a pretty good sized, slightly hairy hobo spider glaring back at me. i grab a shoe to squash it, and instead of trying to run away, the thing actually tries to attack my shoe! so it was dead, i got some toilet paper, and it was over. heh. they're really aggressive little things...weird.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7d/Male-hobo.gif <---that's the one!
also, i found out just a few minutes ago that you're actually not supposed to squash them, because the scent attracts its kin. great. >_< now i won't be able to sleep tonight. 0_0
cats are evil!?
hah, my mom forwarded this to me today:
From the diary of the cat:
Day 183 of my captivity... My captors continued to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while I am forced to eat dry cereal. The only thing that keeps me going is the hope of escape, and the mild satisfaction I get from clawing the furniture. Tomorrow I may eat another house plant. Today my attempt to kill my captors by weaving around their feet while they were walking almost succeeded - must try this at the top of the stairs. In an attempt to disgust and repulse these vile oppressors, I once again induced myself to vomit on their favorite chair - must try this on their bed. Decapitated a mouse and brought them the headless body in an attempt to make them aware of what I am capable of, and to try to strike fear in their hearts. They only cooed and condescended about what a good little cat I was. Hmmm, not working according to plan. There was some sort of gathering of their accomplices. I was placed in solitary throughout the event. However, I could hear the noise and smell the food. More important, I overheard that my confinement was due to my powers of inducing "allergies." Must learn what this is and how to use it to my advantage. I am convinced the other captives are flunkies and maybe snitches. The dog is routinely released and seems more than happy to return. He is obviously a half-wit. The bird, on the other hand, has got to be an informant and speaks with them regularly. I am certain he reports my every move. Due to his current placement in the metal room, his safety is assured. But I can wait; it is only a matter of time.
lol! so cats really ARE evil! o.0
canoe trip
i had almost forgotten about it until yesterday when my old roomie from last year called me yesterday and asked if i was still planning on going! wow, it was so much fun. i've been white-water rafting before, but i've never been in a canoe until today and it was quite an experience. we canoed a very calm 5 mile stretch of the Snake River today, and it was slow, easy, and pretty shallow. which is lucky for me since my roomie Camilla enjoys the frigid water and didn't care if we swamped or not. lol. there were 8 of us, a combination of new roomies, old roomies, and old roomies' roomies (heh), and three canoes. so Camilla and i took one and there were three girls in the other two. one was the designated "dry canoe" because they didn't want to get wet, so we kept most of the stuff we wanted to stay dry in that one. i'm glad i bought a disposable camera because i didn't put my camera in the dry boat. i wanted to take pictures, and though Camilla wanted to get swamped for fun, i didn't think she'd actually make us do it because i did have my camera. i did want to get wet, and we had water fights with the other non-dry boat of course, but i didn't want to get completely soaked! i tell ya, it happened so fast and i'm not exactly sure why we tipped over in the first place, but we did. one minute i was paddling and getting into a nice groove and working out my arms pretty well, and the next minute we're leaned way far to the left, and then i'm in the water, halfway under the canoe, and hyperventilating in the cold water trying to get on my feet in the shin-deep river. despite being cold, wet, and shocked, i was laughing my butt off. it really was fun, and i learned how to un-swamp a canoe because of it. all you have to do is tip it over, lift it onto the middle of another canoe, tip it right-side up, and slide it back off into the water, empty. fun stuff. we saw little fish, some ospreys, and even two moose up close! i just hope that my camera will be ok. it still seems to be taking pictures, and i don't hear water when i shake it, so we'll see. lol.
after the float, we went up into the mountains a little higher to see the Mesa Falls, and we were dang close to them, too! i've got some awesome pictures if they turn out. we also went and fed the fish in a pool a little higher up. there were some HUGE rainbow trout and even a few salmon! they're spawning this time of year, otherwise we probably wouldn't have seen many fish at all. i'm pooped, but it was well worth it. so pretty, and so awesome. i now have some inspiration for the book i'm writing, and if my pictures turn out, maybe they will be inspiration for my friend's book, too. ^_^
the Y, the I, and the H
i guess i promised a post about school awhile back. not that anyone in their right mind really cares that much about school ;P, but my blog is in need of an update and this makes good subject material.
so, i attend college at Brigham Young University-Idaho. i know many of you have heard of the original, regular old BYU (a.k.a "that Mormon school"), and that's in Provo, Utah. well, what many people who aren't members of my church
don't know is that there are now three Brigham Young Universities/"Mormon schools." BYU is, as i said, in Provo Utah, BYU-Hawaii is in Laie, Hawaii, and BYU-Idaho, which used to be Ricks College, is in Rexburg, Idaho. as i call them, the Y (Utah, referring to just the middle initial), the I (Idaho), and the H (Hawaii). you get it, right? right. anyways, when i first started back in January of '04, i declared myself a music major. i've since discovered that it's just a bit too competitive for my taste and i've settled on a graphic design major. i
wanted to be an automotive major, but my parents didn't want me to go off to a big university and spend the big bucks doing something i could just go to a tech school for. so with many pouts and raised voices (ok, not really, i'm happy with my decision) i decided to get my Bachelor's doing something else i really enjoy doing, and then either minoring in automotive (won't happen now) or going to a tech school afterwards (this will work ^_^ ). besides, with my graphic design experience i could either advertise cars and work with them closely that way, or i could actually design cars themselves and test out my creations! how sweet would
that be?!
this semester i'm taking Drawing I, Art History II (required for art majors but so far it's actually pretty interesting because my teacher is awesome *thumbs up*), Intro to Graphic Design, Book of Mormon II, and a Biology lab that will officially complete my general education besides religion classes. drawing is good so far but he's making us do freehand, two-point perspectives
without the points. for example, we had to draw the cube sitting in front of us without rulers and as if the edges were all converging on vanishing points we didn't exactly know where they were, rather than each edge being parallel, you know what i mean? gah, it was hard and my hand is not very steady. :/
class in 15. later later.
