The Long and the Short of It

I just showed 3 mormon girls my Reverend card when I was at the dining hall. They asked if I was religious, and I said kind of. Then after that I showed them the card. They questioned the validity of the license, and when I told them it's legit they still didn't believe me! How dare they? If Justin Creeden, a fellow Reverend of mine, were there, then he would have set them straight.

The last two days I've been in Weber, Utah cutting down brush and learning out to use the chainsaw. We've been clearing out pathways for a bike path that is going to be built. It's pretty cool knowing that we're doing the initial groundwork for a recreational site. I'm sure I won't be around to see the final product, though, but it's still cool.

Chainsawing is definitely a lot harder than I thought. My muscles are incredibly sore and I can barely type this post! Not to complain, of course, but just stating the facts.

When we're walking down the trail to the site where we work, there is a group of horses that are always out. There's one that looks at us the whole time when we're walking by and it's funny to me for some reason. The way it's looking at us reminds me of how a person watches people. Just a thought.

I'm still staying at Vlad's apartment on campus, and he's been really cool about me staying there. Time to go back and watch game one of the World Series. Go Phillies!

I landed a job as a Crew Leader for the Utah Conservation Corps Winter Crew

I got to Logan, UT (Utah State University) last night and I scored a place to stay by using CouchSurfing.com, which is a site for people who are traveling and need a place to stay. I'm staying with a guy named Vlad, and he's really cool and nice for letting me stay with him on campus.

Today I have been watching football, which is awesome because I was expecting to miss the Patriots play in London. Thank god I was able to watch them crush Tampa Bay. The Patriots are on a roll!

Currently, I'm hanging out in the University library and surfing the net. I start training tomorrow and I'll be doing work in the fields Tuesday-Friday this week. I'll be learning how to use a chainsaw! (and other things). Next Monday I'll be relocating to St. George (southern Utah) for the rest of the program. It turns out that St. George is literally the safest small city in the United States. I think we've found a place to stay as a group too, which is awesome.

Updates to follow! Go Patriots! Go DOWN Yankees!

I went to the Suns game tonight and sat in a suite. There were two of us, and no food. I must be spoiled since the only time I've been in a suite like that was at the AAA Baseball Team USA vs. Italy four years ago (awesome time by the way - tons of food and excellent fun). At the Suns though, there were cans of Coke in the fridge, but nothing else. I didn't expect anything since it was free, preseason, and unexpected to even sit there. The view angle was cool though. I was thinking of how it would be neat to have seats that hang down from the ceiling that could move around...if you can picture that.

I go to a lot of games. In 4 weeks I've gone to 3 of the Mercury championship games and 3 Suns' preseason games. I'm lucky I get the hook-up from Danny since he works at the arena. Tonight was the first time I've sat in the suite level. It's more exciting sitting in regular seats...especially when there are only 2 of you in the suite! I like the view from lower down towards the court. Then you can see Steve Nash tear it up; unless, of course, he limps off the court in the 2nd quarter and doesn't return to the game. Amare has been on fire too. OF COURSE - I'll always be a Celtics fan! (good record in preseason for them, by the way).

I had an interview today to work with the Utah Conservation Corps (Americorps program) to be a leader or a team member for 3 months starting in 2 weeks. I'm hoping to get it. It'll be six volunteers and two team leaders doing habitat restoration; specifically hiking trails. I'm excited to hear back!

Nothing else going on really...weather's nice!

As the title says, this entry is way over-due. As most of you probably know, I relocated to Arizona two weeks ago today, and I'll share some of those experiences with you. I'll throw in some pictures so you can just scan through and look at those, which I'm sure a lot of you will do. That is, if anybody even reads this. Also, I'll give some opinions on the Boston sports world (of course), but that will be a minimal part of the entry. I'll also give you some thoughts on the future and what's next for me.

Arizona so far has been hit or miss. Some days are great, but some days drag and I can hardly stand it. Just to give you some background, I came out here to find a job, but I'm finding out that (A) there are no jobs, and (B) Phoenix is a pretty lame city in general. The "downtown" is about 4 blocks and consists of about 5 restaurants and a bunch of office buildings.

Since I've been here, I've actually done a lot considering I usually hang out all day by myself while Danny and Ernie are at work with the Suns. The Phoenix Mercury (WNBA) has been on a run since I landed. The second night I was here, I went to the game and saw them clinch a spot in the WNBA Finals where they're currently playing the Indiana Fever. I've been to 3 games already and tonight is the final game in the finals at home, which I think I'm going to despite the Red Sox playing game 2 in LA at the same time. Thank god for Verizon Mobile browsers.

Because Danny works at the arena, I've been able to go to these games for free, which is awesome. Last week I also watched the Phoenix Suns play their first preseason game where they blew the Partizan out of the water by about 30 points. Unfortunately, Steve Nash had the flu and didn't play, which was disappointing, but there will be more games coming up.

I also went to the Arizona Diamondbacks' last home game game against the Padres where they won. The stadium is amazingly nice, and is indoors. I wish there was more time left in the season because I'd like to see them play again. Unfortunately, their team is pretty awful so they didn't make it to the postseason.

To get around the city, I've been using the Light Rail transportation system, which is just a train that runs from one end of Phoenix into Mesa. So far, I've seen Scottsdale and Tempe besides Phoenix, and both of those towns are much nicer and appear to have more things to do. Tempe seems like it's where it's at since that is where ASU is where some 50,000+ students go to school. I went over to the campus to walk around one day. I saw many pretty people and the campus was about 50x nicer than Umass (but I'll always love Umass!).

In terms of adventure, I hiked through the White Tank Mountains where I saw several hundred cacti and was stupid enough to step on a dead cactus hard enough so that it broke, flew up, and stuck into my leg. I was able to pull out all off the needles pretty easily though, thank god. Not much wildlife there, but I did see a rabbit and some road-runners (yay). Here are some pictures from that day:

As it turns out, it's kind of a pain in the neck to add photos, but you can see all of the photos I've taken thus far in my Facebook album called "Arizona".

Last night, I went with Danny to see Mae in Scottsdale, which was great, as always. They played a lot of old songs and some newer ones that sound great. I'm looking forward to getting their newest CD. Here's a picture from that:

So in terms of the NFL and MLB the time zone switch is great for that. I've been able to watch all of the games and they start 3 hours earlier. So football Sundays start at 10am, which is kind of weird, but everything's done by 8:30 so it's not late at night either, which is cool. Patriots are on a roll after that win against the Ravens, and I'm looking forward to them facing off against the undefeated Broncos on Sunday.

The Red Sox started their series against the Angels last night where they lost game 1, but they'll bounce back like they always do. Also, did you see that Twins/Tigers 1-game playoff last week?! It was the best game I've seen all year as the Twins went on to win it in 12 innings. They're facing off against the Yankees, as I predicted, so we'll see how that turns out.

I guess that's about it! It's been 2 weeks since I left Massachusetts, but it feels like much longer. I've been talking to some of you regularly, which is awesome, and I miss you all.

My plan is to continue looking for a job in the Phoenix area for a few more weeks.

Mark is coming to visit us the first week in November. If I don't find anything by around that time I might head back to Mass. I've been looking at volunteer jobs through Americorps lately, and I was actually offered a position at West Virginia University yesterday, which would start mid-November. I'm thinking I probably won't take it though...it's too soon and I still want to explore my options. The formatting in blogspot is pretty shotty, and it's irritating.