This last winter we got about 30-40 friends to come up to the church campgrounds in Heber and spent the night in two rented cabins. The main cabin had a huge kitchen where we served pizza for dinner and then cooked eggs and pancakes in the morning. The nights activities consisted of various games like "bear, bear...moose, moose", some kinda "pirate game", cards, curses, catch phrase etc. We also had an acoustic guitar performance and I did a magic show. It was probably the largest crowd I've ever done a show for. It was probably the funnest show I've done. I messed up a few times (but I don't think anyone really noticed) and my knife literally broke in half during the card stab! But it made it all the more entertaining. After all of the games we watched a movie on a projector. It was a ton of fun and I think everyone enjoyed the evening.

Prank Wars

One evening I got a covert text saying, "Can I trust you?" A sudden excitement and curiosity shot through my spine. I quickly replied in the affirmative, eager for any action that might ensue. The plan was then revealed to me that this apartment of girls wanted to pull a prank on the guys who's apartment I was staying at. The time was set and my involvement clear: I was to leave the basement door unlocked and create some background noise so the sleeping guys upstairs wouldn't hear anything. Around 1:00 am 5 girls slipped into the downstairs room with hundreds of newspapers. Crumpling them up they began to bury the floor of the room. The plan worked perfect and after 45min the fiends snuck away and left this mess...

The next morning the guys were surprised to find the cluttered mess downstairs and plans of retaliation were immediately put into effect. It took 3 of us with two shopping carts a half hour to clear out the newspapers.

An apartment meeting was quickly called and I, being accused as an accomplice, wasn't invited. Ideas were pooled together and a plan was concocted. It took a few days but eventually the guys forgave me and let me join in on their evil plan. We let a week or so go by, so that the girls wouldn't expect when the retribution would come. Finally on Sunday, when everyone was at church I went over to the girls apartment and rang the door bell. I rang it again and knocked loudly making sure no one was home and to my delight no one was---perfect! I texted the guys, "No one is home, it's on!" I was soon joined at home by the others. We got our supplies and being cunning men got into their apartment. We started by stacking all their furniture against the front door. A can of tuna fish was put up in the ceiling vent in their front room. Then we greased up 3 bowling balls, plugged the holes and stuck them in the 3 toilets of their apartment. We also caused the water to become yellow (easily done by guys) and made the bathrooms reek of dead animal and poo. With the awful smell leaking from under the bathroom doors and through the rest of the house we quickly left--not being able to stand the stench.

The girls thought the furniture was funny but were quite concerned about the smell coming from the bathrooms. We told them it was coyote urine and fungus's...which in reality it may or may not be true...the truth will have to remain a mystery. They also complained of smelling tuna but couldn't find the source for a week or so. We all were laughing so hard especially when we pretended like we couldn't smell the tuna or we would walk by and leave the bathroom door open letting the smell out again and tease them about the awful rashes they would get. Oh gosh...it was hilarious. When you pick a fight with a bunch of boys you better know it's not going to be pretty.

Not for the Squeamish

WARNING: Do not look at the following pictures if you can't handle flesh wounds and blood.

Now I'm sure with a warning like that no one will be able to resist looking at my latest test of human regeneration. "Be safe, and come back alive," the wives and loved ones said as we packed the Jeep with our snowboards. "Yeah...yeah...we'll be fine," was our response to the worried women. No pain no gain right? Besides we were men and mother nature was calling us to conquer its snowy slopes. The conditions on the mountain were cold and rainy but we still had a fun time attempting jumps and sliding across the rails in the snow park. Late in the afternoon tragedy struck as I was waiting on the slope for Ty. He came skidding to a stop, but didn't stop fast enough and his board collided into my leg. Whether it was the cold or the rain, or maybe both, the impact didn't seem to hurt and I didn't at all feel the blood start oozing from my leg. So we happily got up and snowboarded for another hour. It wasn't until I got to the car and took off my snow pants that I saw this eyeball looking flesh wound staring at me with dried blood down my leg. I went to the ski patrol and they gave me 2 gauze pads and an alcohol pad. Boy, with this top notch medical equipment I was now ready to fix a paper cut. Once we got back to Ty's house his mother-in-law helped clean and bandage things up. The guys were excited about a cool scar and the girls were maybe a little more worried. But what good is an adventure without a war wound to remember it by.

Thanks for the story Ty.

Thanks for cleaning and sterilizing your bathroom in world record time Shonda.

Thanks for your Dr. skills Sandy.

I warned you about looking. Pretty sweet though huh?

Busta Move

You may see guys like this. Guys who dedicate their lively hood to sign waving, often distracting you from your driving to focus your attention on some gimmick or sale. I've seen them holding signs, guitars, and even saw one dressed as the Statue of Liberty. When I'm stopped at a red light, i try not to, but I can't stop my eyes shifting to settle on them as they dance to the music coming from their mp3 player. Recently I may have found the best sign dancer out there. Props to T-mobile for finding this diamond among the sign dancer community.

Its been a longer time since I've updated my blog. I feel like I've let down the blogging community. I hope all my readers (ha ha the 3 who maybe read this) haven't completely given up checking my blog. Now for a little update....

I returned to the land of my birth(Corvallis, OR) for Christmas. It was a quite Christmas as I was the only one home for Christmas. My mom and I spent most of the day at my sister's place playing with her kids and their new toys. While I was home I got to see a bunch of old friends. I got together with some of my best high school friends at American Dream Pizza. Also someone from my high school had a great idea of organizing a CV alumni get together. At around 8pm people started trickling into the peacock in downtown Corvallis. Some of the faces I instantly recognized and some I had to do double takes before it hit me. I was fun seeing old friends which brought back wonderful memories of the 4 years I walked the halls of CV.

The three bones are re-united once again.

Rachel, Michelle, Dom, Marc and I

Marc is the first of the crew to get married and have a Kid!

Dinner at American Dream Pizza

Northwestern Prosthetic School

My time here is Chicago is about up. Its been a fun experience living in Chicago and going through the prosthetic program at Northwestern. Our class of 22 will graduate this Friday and then branch off on our separate ways. I feel like we had a special class in that everyone really bonded and helped each other out. School has consisted of assessing patients and casting them for a prosthesis. I'd then build it and try fitting it to the patient. We all completed 7 prosthesis projects in 8 weeks so it has been busy and time has flown by. Our class laughed a lot together making being in "school" enjoyable and when we'd get together to party and danced everyone had fun. Some memorable moments included dissecting the human body (new experience for me), Elvis singing happy birthday to Tom(our prosthetic instructor), Team Uniforms, Mullets, kidney stone hospital run (luckily it wasn't mine), Critiques, foot braking, Shannigans, Mcfadden's, O'tooles, and getting free stuff at AOPA. Chicago has been pretty fun too, but I'm ready to get back an area that has mountains, lakes, canyons and grass.

Tom gets serenaded by Elvis Tom and Mark rockin' it proudly
Class picture with 'The King' James and Scott pulling plastic on a socket
Modifying Dustin drape forming
Nice seam Ryan
Trans humeral prosthesis (none of our projects were completely finished all the way but just enough for trial fittings)

Trans tibial Prosthesis

Papa smurf

Thousands of people flocked to watch Flugtag put on by RedBull. I think I saw something like this on TV once but it's an unusual competition where a team of individuals build a contraption that supposedly glides when they run it off a platform 30 feet in the air, after performing a short skit. Basically what happens is the contraption crashes into the water and everyone cheers. It seemed like something off MTV or those Chinese game shows.It was pretty entertaining.