Look what I found...

It is a BYU garter. Something blue. Perfect.

Man in the Arena

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

Theodore Roosevelt; “Citizenship in a Republic”, Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

BYU football junkie

So... uh... this may come as a surprise, but I enjoy following BYU football and staying up to date on what is going on with the team. I thought I might help spread the joy and share some of the websites that are good.

So my favorite website is www.deepshadesofblue.com. The analysis is fantastic and the articles are posted by former players, so they have great insights. The comments section hasn't been invaded yet by people who just want to stir things up and create controversy. If you just have time to read one, this is the best.

The next site you will want to check is www.byucougars.com/football. Official site, has all the press releases from the athletic department and has some fun player stories. It also has player profiles for each player, the schedule, multimedia (check out the wallpapers), etc.

I also like www.cougarblue.com. The site isn't as good as it was a few years ago, but just about everything that happens with BYU football is talked about here. I am just selective in what I read -- there are a lot of postings that are stupid and are just arguing and sharing opinions. But if you check this once a day, you will always be in the loop.

Another recent discovery is www.cougarcorner.com. This site is what cougarblue.com used to be. One of the posters, mcgregor, has some connections with the program and has good insights. He used to post on cougarblue, but left because cougarblue started going downhill.

A popular website is www.cougarboard.com, but I rarely get on it because the format is hard to follow. Usually if something interesting is going on at cougarboard, someone will repost it on cougarblue.

A website that used to be awesome is www.cougarlegion.com. There used to be alot of insider information on this site, but then Bronco asked them to stop sharing it, so now it is mostly just opinion by fans.

Jonny Harline just started a BYU football this year. http://jonnyharline13.blogspot.com/ I think people are still discovering it, so it is just starting to take off. He posts pretty regularly, but his analysis isn't as in depth as on deepshadesofblue.

Greg Wrubell has a blog called cougartracks on ksl.com (http://www.ksl.com/?nid=498). Greg Wrubell is great, so I enjoy this site.

A great video site is www.justanotherdumb.com/byu. There are highlight videos from every game on there.

So the ultimate site is Total Blue Sports (http://byu.scout.com/). This is a subscription website. It has some golden information, and some of it is free but all the good stuff requires a subscription. If you aren't a broke student, then the cost isn't too bad.

An interesting one is Utah Legends. http://www.utahlegends.blogspot.com/ It follows players in the NFL that played college ball in Utah.

Did I miss any?

GO COUGARS!!

I'm growing up so quickly

I am officially 24 years old!! I've been telling people (mostly patients) that I'm 24 for about 6 months now, so it is nice to not be a little liar anymore! Thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday and helped make my birthday wonderful! Join me for a trip down memory lane as I make a tribute to myself...Apparently I used to be a morning person and would wake up with bright, shining eyes... hence my nickname Twinkler

Me and the sis... don't you miss the days of linoleum and burnt orange draperies Mom?

These were my immodest days when I wore shirts that showed my midriff... luckily the swing covers it up here.Heather and I gave some great performances over the years on that fireplace.Could I be any cuter? I think not. Look at that angel face.
Some things never change. Once a food lover, always a food lover.My 4th birthday. Classic hairstyle.First day of Kind-e-garten.6th birthday.My very first bow. And yes, that is a unitard.I definitely rocked the fro look.
One day your little girl is coming home from Girl Scouts, the next she is taking a pelvic floor anatomy and rehabilitation class.My fashion sense has definitely gone downhill since these days.8th Birthday.Back in the days when I was taller than my little brother.There are so many awesome things going on in this picture.Baptism Day.
One of our favorite past times. Braces ruined all of our fun.
17th birthday on crutches after knee surgery.
Christmas in Hawaii my Junior year of high school.


High school graduation pics.


Heather's wedding 2005.

My 20th birthday.

Undergraduate graduation. I can't believe it has been 2 1/2 years! I'm still a Cougar at heart.

Birth of the CUTEST NEPHEW EVER!!

I have a problem

My productivity has drastically decreased since Saturday. All I think about is football, particularly BYU football. My ability to focus on anything besides football is practically non existent. I wish that there was a degree in football. My desire to be competent in all things related to BYU football is much stronger than my desire to be a competent physical therapist at the moment. This is a very bad thing. In an effort to combat this unfortunate situation, I am now studying up on how I would treat a patient if they came to me with an AC joint sprain – how I would diagnose it, treatment, prognosis, etc. Best of both worlds. Unfortunately, studying about Sam Bradford’s ability to return to sport is not going to help me with my doctoral project.

WE WON!! WE WON!! WE WON!! WE WON!! WE WON!!

So I am a little bit excited that my wonderful Cougars pulled out a HUGE victory against the Oklahoma Sooners this weekend! I'm even more excited about the fact that I GOT TO BE THERE!!!! Yes, it is true... I was among the loyal and faithful Cougar fans who made the long trek to Dallas, Texas to support the Cougs. Best decision ever. I almost didn't go because the tickets were SO expensive (thank you Jerry Jones). But last Wednesday, they opened up a bunch of standing room only tickets for $25 a piece (plus $10 in processing fees of course). So, after counseling with my trusty classmates, I purchased one despite the fact that I had no way to get down there and no place to stay once I got there. But then I started making calls and it all turned out like magic. My dad had enough frequent flier miles to fly me and a friend down there for free. Then my friend had some connections and was able to get us transportation, lodging, and food FOR FREE!! I never even opened my wallet on the trip, except to show my I.D. at the airport!

So the coolest part was that we got media passes, which gave us access to the whole stadium! We got to the stadium at about 1:00 pm and walked around talking to the tailgaters and OU fans. Then at 2:00 p.m. they let us into the UNBELIEVABLE stadium and I just kinda sat there in awe for 2 hours while they got ready for their pre-game show. Seriously, the main video board was as large as a house -- actually probably more like 2 houses. Plus there were 2 other screens on the sides of it. The views they showed on ESPN didn't do the place justice -- it was quite the stadium. Of course, when something costs 1.15 BILLION dollars, it had better be freaking amazing. They gave us stat sheets on the stadium and it said the video board weighed 1.2 million pounds and cost as much as the entire Texas Stadium was to build. Anyway, at 4:00 p.m. they started letting everybody into the stadium and so I wandered around for about an hour talking with the OU fans and the BYU fans. So lemme say this about OU fans -- they are a classy bunch. I went to the UW game in Seattle last year, and those fans were AWFUL. They literally made me want to cry. But the OU fans were so nice and friendly. Even after the game, they had nice things to say. Then I went back up to the press box and watched the game from there. Talk about a great view -- and the best part was sitting next to 3 guys who know the game of football inside and out and getting an analysis of the game as the game was happening. I was amazed at everything that they noticed in a 15 second play -- so many technical aspects that the majority of fans, even the most diehard, would never pick up because they haven't played at this level. I was in heaven. Of course, the fact that we were totally outplaying OU helped with that euphoric feeling. I won't even try to describe the excitement that I felt as BYU made the last touchdown and as the clock ran out and THEY WON! After the game was over, we hustled down to field level and went into the interview room and I waited in there for Coach Mendenhall with a sound recording do-da while the other guys went into the locker room to get player interviews. Then I got to be there and help record interviews of the players. So any of the interviews or press conferences you saw on TV or the internet -- I was there for that!!!!! Oh, and I was in the room when Jerry Jones popped his head in! Seriously, I was dying of happiness. I totally played it cool though, don't worry. Then we went back up to the press room and were there until 1:30 a.m. doing the post game show. Well, I just sat there and ate cookies while they did it. Oh that reminds me -- they fed us amazing food in the press box. Could life get any better? I submit that it cannot.

I was much more excited than my face shows in this picture.

A not so good picture of me in the interview room waiting for Coach Mendenhall and the players to come for the press conference.

View from the press box, just before the game started.

This is the only video I have with me actually in it.

Sometimes all you can say is "Oh well, that's life."

So get this...

Classes start at 7 a.m. every day except Wednesdays this semester. On Wednesdays we start at 9 a.m. So I'm thinking, "Perfect! I will go to the temple on Wednesday morning before class." So I go to the temple and have a wonderful experience doing baptisms. I get to my car and it takes me FORTY MINUTES to go from temple square to the U of U. That is like 5 miles! Apparently there was some walk-a-thon going on and then also just excessive amounts of drivers. Nothing I can do about it though, right? So I don't have enough time to go home and shower as I had planned. The night before I had gone running and took a shower, but didn't wash my hair cuz I knew I was going to the temple the next morning (is that TMI?).

So I get to the parking lot about 9:08, get to class about 9:12. Except the professor has LOCKED THE DOORS!! There were about 12 of us that she locked out of class because we were late! She literally shut the door at 8:59. She physically pushed one of my classmates out the door (who had just had ACL surgery!!) and told he was not welcome in class. Now keep in mind, we had no warning in previous classes that she would be enforcing this policy or that she would be giving us grades based on attendance. For the majority of us that were late, it was because of accidents or other traffic conditions -- conditions that WE COULD NOT CONTROL!! Well, I was bugged, but not too bent out of shape because of it because (a) it doesn't really matter to me whether I get an A, A-, or B+ -- it isn't going to affect how good of a therapist I am-- and (b) not a huge fan of the class anyway. I got to spend an hour and 45 minutes working on my doctoral project instead. So suffice it to say, it didn't totally ruin my day.

Then I get home around 2:30 only to find that the water has been turned off for like the EIGHTH month because my landlord "forgot" to pay the water bill. Again. So in the past, what he has done is just gone outside and turned it back on with a wrench or something. That is what he did 2 days ago when they turned it off. Apparently, they discovered he did this and came back and turned it off again, this time locking it.

We are pretty upset that this is happening again and that we are not going to have water all night long, but we handled it very well. Well some other things happened that weren't really in our control that I won't go into detail about, but he apparently had already had a bad day and this really pushed him over the edge. So he decides to serve us with a paper informing us that he is raising our rent by $200 a month!!! Unfortunately, our lease had expired in August and we were going month to month and so it is legal for him to do that. He is having us sign another year lease with the increased rent, or we have to vacate the premises by Oct 1. I've dealt with so many landlords the past 5 years, most of them crappy, so this isn't the first time something like this has happened to me, nor is it the worst thing that has happened to me. So again, I was upset but not too bent out of shape.

But what really ticks me off is that here I am, a full 24 HOURS LATER, and the water is still off. I can't shower (we're going on days now), I can't use the bathroom here, I can't cook the pasta that I had planned, and I can't even get a drink of water! I'm parched (said in a pouting voice)!

So in reality, my life ain't too bad if this is the worst I have to complain about, but COME ON!!!