Ryanware

You know those Christmas cards we all receive which tell a little bit about each family member and what has happened to them in the past year? They give me hope. The reason for this being that I realize that my life isn’t the only boring one. Or maybe it’s that my life is boring. Oh well. Whatever the case may be, I thought as this year draws to an end I’d like to reflect a little bit on what has happened to me this year. You’ll be thrilled, I promise.

Luckily for you, you won’t be as thrilled as you could have been. I was going to write something for every month, but it soon got way too long (see the month of March). So I’m just going to give some highlights.

February: One of my good friends made me go to a Valentine’s party at the local community college. I protested loudly at this idea, especially since it cost me $10 and cost him nothing (he had a free pass), but went anyway. It was that night that I started to learn how to swing dance. We then went swing dancing the following night. And then the next week, and the next week, and the week after that and oops! I’m getting into March.

March: and the next week and the next week… okay I’ll stop. I turned the ripe old age of 489 minus 467. Over spring break I went to San Diego with a group of friends. There were 13 of us I think? We left on the 16th and came back on the 20th. We stayed the first night in a hotel casino called Whiskey Pete’s just outside of Las Vegas. The only thing good about that place was the fact that it was cheap. Of course, the second hand smoke probably took a good 31 years off my life so it might have been better to stay somewhere else. We arrived in San Diego on the 17th and enjoyed a nice evening on the beach. Too bad it was cloudy and windy. Uh oh, this is sounding really negative. First I lose 31 years of my life and then the beach wasn’t sunny! Well, just because it wasn’t sunny doesn’t mean we didn’t have fun. We had a good time swimming and playing volleyball. We then went to Old Town San Diego or whatever it’s called and had dinner at a cool Mexican restaurant. We then stopped in the Mormon Batallion visitor center (read more about the Mormon Battalion). The next day, the 18th, we went to Tijuana Mexico. This was my first time out of the good old USA. Me diverti mucho poder hablar con los mexicanos y aun mas divertido fue cuando ellos hablarian sin saber que yo y dos de mis amigos podian entenderles. Creo que gaste demasiado dinero en Tijuana, pero para que quejarme? Claro, no debia haber tenido presa comprando gafas de sol, pero ya ni modo. La historia de las gafas de sol: al entrar en Tijuana un hombre trato de venderme gafas de sol por $20. Yo le dije que no. $15, no. $10, no. $5, no, pero tal vez regrese luego le dije. Al salir de Tijuana pasamos por el mismo hombre y yo le dije que compraria los lentes por $5. El problema aqui fue que yo tenia prisa y el lo sabia. Yo le di un $20 y el dijo “$6 dolares”. A mi, con mi prisa, no me importaba ya y le dije algo como “whatever”. El me dio los lentes y mi cambio y sali corriendo. No fue hasta luego que conte el dinero para encontrar que habia pagado $12 por mis lentes baratos. Hasta este momento habia estado defendiendo a los Mexicanos puesto que conozco a muchos personalmente y son personas muy honestas. Pues, los que conozco son honestos y millones mas tambien, pero este no hombre no lo fue. Unos de mis amiogs se quejaban que todo lo que hacian los Mexicanos en Tijuana era para estafar. Mientras sabia que no todos son asi, ya no me caian bien todos. Yo le perdone por haberme estafado, pero la proxima vez no confiare tanto en personas que no conozco. Ya ni modo, a lo mejor el necesitaba el dinero mas que yo. No fue mucho.

Okay, back to English. After leaving Tijuana I don’t recall going anywhere else but back to where we were staying to watch a movie (Pirates of the Carribean). The next day, the 19th, we went to the San Diego LDS Temple and then drove to L.A. (well, near it anyway) where one of our friend’s sister and brother-in-law live. After eating at an In and Out Burger joint we dropped our stuff off and drove up into the mountains to go hiking. We were to hike to a waterfall and go swimming. Our friend’s sister was our guide. We somehow got off the trail though and our short hike turned into a really long hike. But don’t you fear. We didn’t get lost and eaten by bears or anything. We eventually made it to the waterfall and had a good time swimming. I need to scan these pictures in to post on here (I really need a digital camera). As it started to get dark we decided we better head back so we wouldn’t get lost again and freeze to death. We took the real trail back. We ended up being quite happy that we got off the trail on the way to the waterfall. The trail was boring and really quick.

When we got back to the place we were to sleep we had a funny experience. One of my friends had bought a guitar in Tijuana. While we were hiking, the brother-in-law who stayed home decided to fill a plastic bag with powdered sugar and shove it in the guitar. So when my friend picked up the guitar to play it he noticed something inside after a few minutes. What the? Drugs! Or so everyone thought. Well, most everyone. From where I was standing I could see our friend mouthing to his brother-in-law “he fell for it”, laughing, and giving a thumbs up. It caused quite a stir and was really quite funny to watch. How did that much drugs get across the border through the scanning machines? etc. etc. etc. They eventually flushed it all down the toilet. I have no idea if anyone still believes it was really a bag full of drugs, I know the friend with the guitar doesn’t anymore. The next day I and two friends drove home while the rest stayed to go to a theme park. We called them half way home and asked how it was going. They’d been on two rides and were in line for another. We’re glad we didn’t stay.

Whew!

July: ULX 2004! ULX stands for Utah Lindy Exchange. A Lindy Exchange is basically a big huge swing dance that crazy swing dancers in big cities organize. People from all over the USA and world attend these things. An entire weekend of swing dancing! The dances usually go from 8 PM - 4 AM. It’s great. ULX 2005 is in January.

Also in July was our annual family reunion in the Uintah Mountains, Utah (Flaming Gorge is in the Uintahs). The actual family meeting part is boring, but we always go up a few days early to go fishing, raft the Green River, cliff jumping and sometimes water skiing on Flaming Gorge. Always a good time.

September: Started this blog! What? This shouldn’t be a highlight? Why are you reading then?!

December: Christmas concerts, skiing (was going to go again today, but other things got in the way), I learned how to tie my shoes the right way (!! you only think I’m kidding), and other fun stuff. The Phantom of the Opera movie was good, but I wouldn’t say it was a highlight and since this is supposed to be highlights I suggest you forget I said that.

That’s all for this year! I could have gone on and on, but I’ll be surprised if people read all of this already.

I’m looking forward to 2005! I wish you the best! See you next year!

Things learned at the mall today while standing in line:

• Some people will talk to anyone about anything
• Those people won’t ever shut up
• Not even when you try to ignore them
• If you call Discover Card and try to cancel your account you’ll get really really good interest rates.

Finishing my shopping today (I actually finished), I ended up in line between two Discover Card employees. One worked in retention and the other worked in collections. The one in collections was the one who didn’t stop talking. She started off about how she’d been to the mall last night and wasn’t able to get what she needed. Then she started talking to the guy infront of me about his phone with the cool bluetooth wireless headset and their cell phone services, then somehow found out they both work for Discover Card. I didn’t really mind the lady talking the whole 20 something minutes I was in line (long line just for gift certificates). It wasn’t so boring that way. I did find out that people that are really behind on their payments (starting at I think 90 days) can get on some hardship plan of some kind even though the collections people can’t tell you that. The retention guy said people should just call to cancel their accounts. He said they get them on really good plans with 0% interest for life. Or So he said anyway. I don’t have a Discover Card so I can’t personally verify this, but if it’s true, how’s that for a Christmas bonus? Dishonest? I know I’d probably feel guilty (unless of course I really did want to cancel the card), but I’ll let you decide.

Anyway, this has been a weird Christmas Eve post. I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas! Don’t forget to do some rockin’ around the Christmas tree for me (dancing).

Surviving Christmas is a terrible movie. I personally think movie critics have seen way too many movies. I almost always enjoy movies that the critics rip apart. I have to agree with the critics on this one though. The plot (a millionaire rents out a family for Christmas) had so much potential and they blew it. There were funny parts, but overall it wasn’t very good IMO.

The Polar Express wasn’t terrible. It was better. It was just different. It had some good parts. I need to read the book now.

I went to see Surviving Christmas with a guy friend. I went to see The Polar Express with a girl (I’ll give you one guess who it was). Needless to say, the company made a difference in how much I liked each movie.

Those would be the only two new Christmas movies I’ve seen so far this year. As for older movies, I saw Elf last week for the first time. I guess since that’s only a year old it could still be considered new, but for my purposes here it’s not new. While the beginning and end were rather odd I thought the rest of it was absolutely hilarious. I recommend seeing it if you haven’t already. Actually, I recommend it even if you have seen it.

Has anyone seen Christmas with the Kranks yet? Is it worth going to see?

If you look at the word surviving long enough it looks like it’s spelled wrong.