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.

So today I started throwing some old CDs onto my iPod before I make the move to Az. I was surprised when I found these CDs in my room that several of them weren't already on my iTunes, but thank God they are now. Check some of these names out:

Green Day - Warning
New Found Glory - From the Screen to Your Stereo
The Movielife - This Time Next Year
Jewel - Pieces of You <---yea, I can't believe I put this on my computer...
Freeway - Philidelphia Freeway
Bad Religion - No Control
Korn - Life is Peachy
Boys II Men - The Remix Collection <---one of the first CDs I ever owned, but I can't recall EVER listening to it
Limp Bizkit - Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water
System of a Down - System of a Down
Green Day - Insomniac
Chumbawumba - Tubthumper

In other news, the Red Sox have won 6 straight and are taking a commanding lead in the Wild Card race in the American League. There is still about four weeks left of the baseball season to go. I'm predicting the American League playoff picture to pan out as such:

East: NY Yankees
Central: Minnesota
West: LA Angels
Wild Card: Red Sox

There's nothing profound about my predictions, though most would say that Detroit is running away with the Central as Minnesota is 4.5 games back right now. However, I'm not very impressed with Detriot's pitching staff, and the Twins are able to get it done on offense against any team. I think there's still plenty of time for the Tigers to fall to the Twins in this race as the Twins have a 3-game winning streak going for them right now. The Twins and the Tigers face off seven more times this season! This gives the Twins plenty of chances to take a lead in the AL Central.

Red Sox will face off against the Angels in the ALDS, as usual, and blow through them, as usual! Dice-K pitched a solid 6 scoreless innings against the Angels tonight, and I'm looking forward to seeing him finally get back into the Sox's rotation.

I hope to God the Yankess lose to Minnesota, but I wouldn't mind seeing the Sox face off against them either. Though since the All-Star Break the Yankees have pretty much dominated every team in the AL East, I have full faith that the Sox will be able to get the job done. I'm not afraid of C.C. Sabathia or Mark Teixeira.

The Buffalo Bills were charging down the Patriots' half of the field as the final 10 minutes ticked off of the 4th quarter. Greg Webber, confident that the Bills were running away with the game, challenged everyone to a bet that the Patriots wouldn't string a comeback together. All of my instincts told me to take the bet because I knew that Tom Brady would pull another game-winning drive out of his pocket. Needless to say, I didn't take the bet. What was I thinking?

As the clock winded down to the final 5 minutes of the 4th quarter, the Buffalo Bills had just scored a touchdown to put them up 24-13 against the New England Patriots. Greg still taunted us to take his bet, but I still didn't for some reason.

BOOM! The Patriots charge down the field and score a TD to put them within 5 with 2:06 remaining (failed 2pt conversion).

Kickoff.....McKelvin of the Bills catches it in the end zone...doesn't down it for the guaranteed touchback, but takes it up field! Here comes Merriweather....LATER! Stripped ball and the Patriots take control on the Bills' 31. Quick pass from Brady to Watson AGAIN for the game-winner because Trent Edwards cannot run an offense against the Patriots when they're winning at home with less than a minute remaining.

If only I took that bet from Greg, I would be owed an ice cream cone at Friendly's. Yeah, the bet was for ice cream.

It's about time that I made the switch from Livejournal to something a little more professional (kind of). That being said, I haven't "seriously" used my Livejournal in a few years, but I did enjoy writing in it back in the day. I can't promise myself that I'll even use this, but for some reason I was inspired to start writing in a blog. I hope to someday be Tim Meadows' Blog Master.

So yesterday kicked off the 2009 NFL season. Actually, last Thursday's game between the Steelers and the Titans did, but I hold so much animosity towards the Steelers that last Thursday wasn't put in the category of yesterday's games. I wasn't around for the beginning part of the afternoon, but I caught some of the endings to the 1pm games and then all of the 4pm games.

HILIGHTS FROM SUNDAY

• Brandon Stokley's game-winning 87-yard touchdown pass from Kyle Orton with less than 1 minute remaining in the 4th quarter
• Adrian Peterson runs for 180 yards and 3 touchdowns as Brett Favre passes for 1 touchdown
• Drew Brees "cuts up" the Lions as he passes for 6 touchdown passes and over 350 yards
• Giants defense owns the Redskins. Osi Umenyiora forces a fumble and returns it for a touchdown
• Green Bay wins as Aaron Rodgers throws a deep touchdown pass to Greg Jennings on 3rd and 1 instead of going for the field goal