One of the gifts of my life…

So you know how there are people that are just natural good at something? So people are natural gifted with writing, others are great with music. There are many gifts that people have in life. I have learned that one of the things that I am just good at is games. This I am sure comes as no surprise to many of you. Well, not only am a good at games in general, but I’m usually pretty good video games as well.

Prior to moving to Provo I really had cut back on my video game play. After moving here I had pretty much completely stopped, that was all until about a month ago. About a month ago I got two new roommates. Both of them like to play a game called Halo 2. Although I have never played the game I know that it is a pretty popular game. As Golden Eye was to the N64, Halo2 is to the X Box. The only difference is that with the X box you can play games against people on line. My roommate who owns the xbox 360 used to be hooked on it back in the day. It has been kind of fun to talk to him about being younger and wasting so much of your childhood over these types of games.

So after a month I have learned the ways of Halo. :) It has been fun to go from being the kid that we let play because his roommates are go to giving everyone a run for their money. The picture is of me playing with a group in our apartment. Once a week we get together and there are 8 of us (4 on two tvs) that play against each other. This picture was taken at a Mario Kart night for Family Home Evening. After everyone was done playing Mario Kart we played one game of Halo 2. When the picture was taken it was the score was 15-8-6-3, I was winning. Ah, it is nice to be respected once again. :)

Week of Recovery

Ok, so I was going to make a posting of my fun adventure of 2 weekends ago last week at the Toby Keith concert. I also had a few other things I was working on (aka Pari’s E-mail) but last week I got deathly sick. Ok, so it may not have killed me but it took me out for a good 3 days, and I’m still not at 100% almost a week later. All I have to say is there is not much more humbling in life than getting sick. It makes you slow down and realize how nice it is to be healthy. Another interesting observation I had was that when you are sick and are having problems with you stomach, you don’t get hungry. I was amazed on how after only eating a little less then a sleeve of salt teens, about a handful of cheerios, and 4 leaders of Sprite in about 48 hours can keep you feeling full when you are sick.

By now my stomach is better and acting more in control; however, I still find myself rather week. I plan on finishing those things I wanted to before I got sick. Hope life is treating all of you well.

Stocking shelves is fun… Having a stocker, not so much

Some of you may remember that one of the jobs I had right before my mission was as a night stocker at Dick’s Market. In fact I loved to say that I stocked at night. :) Although I loved that job, have a stocker is real life… is not as fun.

So, I have made a good amount of friend while I have been up here. One of the girls who is my FRIEND (and is now pushing that) I called the stocker massage girl. I said it as a joke but it became a self fulfilling title. I should have known something was up when I felt that I had to go in and out of the back of my apartment. At first I thought that I was just being paranoid, but then I thought about it and thought that it was probably best that I didn’t let her know where I live. On Sunday (2 days ago) I was talking to my roommate about her telling him that, “she would be the kind of girl that would just stop in all the time”.

So that night after taking a 2 hour nap I woke up to find my roommate playing a video game. I sat on the sofa watching him play Mario 3 for the NES and trying to wake up. All of the sudden there was a knock at the door. He got up to get it and I heard a girl ask if Brad was there. It was one of the moments that you think you yourself, “I know that voice… and that is not a good thing”. Yep sure enough it was stocker Sally and her new roommate.

So they came in and sate down. I had to make sure I was a wake and that this was not some kind of a nightmare I was having. Sally was so happy that they had found out where I lived. She wanted me to guess how they found it. I had told her that I lived in this apartment where this old angry couple live when she asked before. :) She proceeded to tell me that she saw which mail box I got my mail out of, and got the number off that. Ya, she earned the title of stocker.

So they were at my house for 15 minutes and 3 of the 4 roommates had met them. One of my roommates said he was going to be taking off to go to someone else’s apartment. I sent him a text that said, “I need your help.” He then said to me, “what do you need.” I kind of acted like I didn’t know what he was talking about and then a minute later I texted him, “take me with you”. He walked out of the room and a minute later came back in and said to me, “are you ready to go home teaching, Brad?”

Blessed home teaching… to bad I had already gone for the month, but when I had a way out I was going to take it. I ended up going to the kids house for 20 minutes until I had to go something for someone I home taught. It was funny because the roommate that was playing Nintendo later told me that the two girls stayed at our place for over 15 minutes. He was going to say he was going to go to bed to get them to leave and just turn off the TV, but he was scared that one of the would turn off the Nintendo and he was on World 6 with no warp whistles.

All and all it has been an interesting experience. Not to much of a fan about it, but it makes a great story. :)

The Week of Contest

So, this past week as been the week of contests for me. It all started Tuesday night. At nine a clock they have this thing called "the buck off" on K-bull 93, a country radio station. They play two songs and you chose which one should stay and which one should go. So there is this song by Carrie Underwood "I'll stand by you" that has been winning lately. I'm not to big of a fan of the song so I tried to call in and let it known. It is after 9 PM so the calls are free. Any ways I finally get through and the guy asks me who I would like to vote for and I replied, "I think you should buck her off." Needless to say that made the guy on the radio laugh. He liked it so much he had be start over because he was not recording. So we did a retake but there was a different ending. I informed me that I was caller number 93 and won tickets to a Diamond Rio concert in August. Needless to say I was shocked. After a second of thinking about it, I realized, it is not what you know but who you know. If I had been caller 93 he would have been recording me from he get go.
So Thursday 9 PM rolled around and I was just getting off work. Carrie was still on top going against Taylor Swift and "Tear Drops on My Getare." So I called in again to try and off Carrie. It took a few minutes of trying but it started to ring, and ring and ring. Finally the guy picked up and I had a little fun asking, "How is my girl Taylor doing?" We joked around for a minute and then he informed me that I was... caller 93 and has won a pair of tickets to Diamond Rio. For the record I was not trying to win, I just wanted to off Carrie. Any who it was a different D-J filling in for the night. Needless to say Jason Vilos won a pair of tickets to Diamond Rio :)

So on Friday, someone two else over came up to me and asked me if I wanted to be in a pie eating contest. I like pie and all but I had eaten lunch at 12:20 came into work and one and in the space of an hour ate 2 bagels. I was stuffed. I was thinking that I would be set, for most of the night. So I get roped into the pie eating contest because the other guy was fasting. I was thinking that I would be one of 8 people so I could just sit back and watch everyone else go to town and just go slow and enjoy myself... ya, that didn't happen.
So we went outside and I found out that I was only one of four people who would be eating pies and that each person represented a department. When I found that out it made the competition start to get to me, then I that we had banana cream pies. When that was announced, I heard Jeremy say to Zack (the man representing their department) "you got this one won." When I heard those words come out of my brother's month, I think that put me over the edge, I was going to win this thing.
Well, the two minutes went by and I ended up winning. I had the whole pie eaten with about 20 seconds left. Everyone started to catch up so I had keep going and I started to eat the crust.

It was a lot of fun, and I won $10 in Bajio bucks… woo woo! I am also know now at work as- the pie eater in addition to Jeremy’s brother.

What would you look like?

So if I was an M&M I figure this is what I would look like. I found this website and it is kind of fun. Go to http://www.becomeanmm.com . It is fun and I want to see what everyone would like to look like as an M&M. Post your picture in the comments area. If you have any questions let me know. You can just make it up and then there is a download button on the bottom of the screen that will then give you the option of saving it on the computer.
I like the red and the yellow, it makes it look more bright and happy. I like the thick frames, I have been told I look good in glasses. :) I chose the soccer ball and the gloves because I was a golly back in the day. I wish my hair could be that strait, but it curls. All and all I think that's one good looking M&M.

Feeling a little older...

So I had an interesting week last week. It all started off with FHE. I was in a car with a group of six other people and we were just having the conversation to get to know a little about each other. After being in the car for 10 minutes one of the girls in the back blurted out, “I am the grandma of the car, I’m the only one that is 23.” You know, it must have been the way she said it, but all of the sudden 24 seemed a lot older then it is. I really was not surprised. I had mentioned earlier that I was on my mission from 02-04 and half over half of the car graduated in 2004 or 2005. :)

So the rest of the week was filled with work, homework, and a little playing around. After Wednesday and my class will all be over. Anyways, this past weekend I ended up going to Kaysville on Friday night and then Saturday night I spent some time back in Bountiful. It is amazing how everything seems so much smaller.

I happened to be up there to see the sun set. You know, they really have some good sun sets up there. I took some pictures while I was there but you really just don’t catch it all. Well hope you enjoy the view… I know I did.

Oh, I wanted to get a thanks to Julie for letting me us her camera and sending me these pictures.

-Here are a few more pics of Bountiful and the view-
Click on them to make them bigger

An unpleasant surprise

Well the other week as some of you know I ended up going down to St. George to see my parents before they left for Alaska. As I left I noticed that the garbage in the kitchen full and about to over flow. My first thought was to take it out… but then I figured that I would be gone for the next few days and I would give that joy to someone else. Well you can all see the pleasant surprise that a waited me when I got back.

Other then this the apartment has not been to bad, and my roommates have been great. Two of them are moving out this week. Both will be replaced with kinds who are 18 years old. I have started to feel old living here in Provo :(