Cool stuff that's happened since Labor Day

1). I flew to Michigan and interviewed at the Oakland University William Beaumont School (OUWB) of Medicine. I loved the whole day there. Felt good.

2). A week later, I flew to Charleston, SC for work. Everything was paid for and I had the best, most expensive meal of my life. It was like I was on Iron Chef: America. I also walked into a praline shop by my hotel--the smell emanating therefrom was the probably the best smell I've ever smelled. Charleston is an awesome city.

3). A few days later I flew home to Utah and spent 5 days there. I interviewed at the U and both of the interviews went (I think) really well.

4). I went home teaching in rural Vermont and had to use a pair of waders to get across a small river to the man's house. Epic.

5). I played intramural soccer. We lost the first game 0-8 (losing to the "Math-holes", which made it even more embarrassing). The next game we lost 1-3 (they scored our only goal--still counts!) Our next game was cancelled and then...that was it. Surprisingly, we didn't make the playoffs. We managed to go the entire season without scoring a single goal on our own. Oh well, fun while it lasted.

6). I went to the Harpoon Oktoberfest in Windsor Vermont with my co-workers. It was my first time being a designated driver! It was also my first time touring a brewery. There was a lot of beer. A lot...of beer.

7). I ate dinner with a family in the ward in Norwich. They have the coolest yard I've ever seen. It stretches to a forest and the hills behind them and they have a pond...yes, their own pond. They swim in it in the summer and skate on it in the winter. Not too shabby.

8). That same day, I saw the Michelle Bachmann bus parked in front of the HOP at Dartmouth.

9). The next day was the Republican Presidential Debate. I saw Charlie Rose walking around. I later learned who Charlie Rose is. I would have gone to the Debate...if I had won the lottery to get a ticket.

10). I went to a corn maze in northern VT--rated the 2nd best corn maze in America. Took us 2.5 hours to get through it. Epic.

11). The next day (Sunday) I was walking across the Green to meet up with friends for dinner and I got a call from an unknown number. I listened to the message and it was from the OUWB. I excitedly called the number back and the Dean of Admissions answered and told me that they wanted to offer me an acceptance for the OUWB class of 2016. I was shocked! And happy. I was one of their first acceptances. I felt very blessed. It's nice knowing that no matter what happens with the other schools I'm waiting to hear back from, I got in somewhere. I'm going to be a Medical Doctor. And I might be moving to Rochester, MI next summer. Stress relieved.

12). I witnessed the annual Homecoming Bonfire on the Dartmouth Green. The fire was HUGE! The freshmen run laps around the fire till it burns out (or they do). We stood in a circle around them and yelled at them to "keep running!" and "stop walking!". Afterwards I went to a frat in the hopes of playing my first game of beer pong (but with water.) It didn't work out. There were a lot of people and the floor was sticky with beer. There was a lot of beer. A lot...of beer. (So this is what non-BYU college life is like). After that we went to an 80s dance party at the "Christian Impact" fraternity--much more tame. And fun.

13). 5 hours later we woke up (all in our own beds) and drove down to Boston for the New England Education Conference. After we arrived we were surprised to learn that it wasn't a YSA specific event--it was for single adults of all ages. We felt...young. We listened to a couple of really great speakers (including Clayton Christensen) and then we spent the morning/afternoon in different classes on MIT's campus. It was a good day, but by the afternoon we were all pretty worn out. To add to the fun, we had to get to the Harbor and we had just purchased T tickets, when it was announced that the inbound Red line was down. Oops. We scrambled back up to the streets and tried to figure out a bus to take but all the buses were full and it was mayhem. Finally we had to just flag down the taxis and go for it. After a short dinner at Legal Seafood we boarded a ship for a Boston Harbor Cruise. It was a good time. It went on for about an hour longer than it should have but...that's how it goes. We got back on shore at 11 and then we dashed up to Mike's Pastry to buy some cannoli before the shop closed at 11:30. We barely made it. Definitely worth it. We then took the T back to Harvard, where we split up to stay with different undergrads. Yeah, I spent the night at Harvard. They were really good kids. The next morning we went to church and then drove the 2 hours back to Hanover. Good, good times. Still love Boston.

14). The next weekend was a half-marathon. So sometime back in September, Sage and Kate convinced me to do a half-marathon with them. We trained (sort of) for it and we knew that it would be difficult but we'd make it out OK. So we got up early on a Saturday morning and drove up to Lyndonville, Vermont. It was a cold morning but, after a few miles, it wasn't a problem. The race went much better than we expected. It wasn't nearly as difficult as I thought it would be, even though there were lots of hills in the course. We finished in a pretty good time and we felt like we could have kept running. It was really great. I hope to run a marathon soon. I'm really glad they talked me into it. Running rules.

15). A few days later I got an interview invite at Dartmouth. I guess having connections really makes a difference (it certainly wasn't my C in Chemistry that got me the interview).

15). That afternoon we got our first big snow. Not cool. We crammed 7 people in my car and we drove to the church for a trunk-or-treat. It was a pretty scary drive--dark and blizzarding. We were fortunate to make it there and back without any problem. We dressed up like characters from Clue. I was Mr. Green solely for the reason that I have no plum or mustard colored clothing.

16). Last Saturday we had a YSA temple trip. We all went and it was pretty swell. I'm grateful for the good friends I've made here. I'm also grateful for my car and that it's holding up like a champ.

17). A few weeks ago I got to watch a brain surgery for Parkinson's. I wasn't allowed to get too close, but it was cool to put on scrubs (1st time) and be in the room.

18). I finally got the go ahead to put up fliers for the study we're working on. A few people have called in, and we had our first patient come in today. It was great. I got to spend nearly 2 hours asking him pages and pages of questions about his psychiatric history. My job just keeps getting better and better.

19). Last night I went to "Voices of Faith" at Dartmouth. Sage spoke about her faith and why she is a member of the Church. After some other student speakers and dinner, I got to talk to some Dartmouth students about our different faith and beliefs. The subject of BYU came up and the assistant to the Chaplain at our table mentioned Brandon Davies and how he was so impressed by BYU and its commitment to upholding its standards. GO BYU! Afterwards we went to the HOP (Hopkins Performing Arts Center) to see Amy play with the Wind Symphony. The music was great but what impressed me most is that they played their last note at precisely 8 o clock. An hour-long concert is the perfect amount of time.

Well, that's about it. Lots of good things happening lately. I am grateful to be where I am.

-Upcoming cool event: for Thanksgiving (about a 90% chance of happening) we are renting a Dartmouth cabin in northern NH and staying there for a few days. Awesome. Chase had convinced me to go turkey hunting with him for our Thanksgiving feast but then he found out that turkey hunting season has already ended. Better luck next year.

Other good news: it's been surprisingly warm the past few days (like getting up to 60 degrees). Bad news: the sun sets at 4:30 here. Live Free or Die!

I drove to Boston. We drove to Montreal. Happy Labor Day.

September 2011 started out with a bang this year. I woke up early on Sept. 1 and made the two-hour drive down to Boston. I parked at the Alewife Station and met up with...Taylor! (aka Taylor Wood, T. Wood, & taylorswood@gmail.com). He had been cruising around the east coast with his family, first in DC, then in Providence with his bro, bro's wife and their cats(or maybe cat? I can't remember. Or maybe they don't have cat(s) anymore...whatever, not relevant). He was bearded and ready to show me around Boston. We couldn't help but comment how cool it was that we met up in Boston, like it was no big deal. (Comments like that were prevalent throughout his stay here.) We took the subway from Alewife to Harvard (it was my first time riding a subway and I was surprisingly excited about it).

Harvard was, of course, awesome. We imagined what it would be like if we were smart enough to get in there...if only we would've invented the facebook or something. We also walked through MIT and then crossed a cool bridge (blanking on the name) over to Boston Common and commenced our journey along the Freedom Trail. I felt patriotic. I was blown away at how cool Boston is. I loved the whole day there. One of the best moments was passing through this outdoor market where stuff was criminally cheap (I bought a carton of really excellent raspberries for a dollar.) But the best moment was going to Mike's Pastry in the North End of Boston. The line was out the door and the place was packed. They are famous for their cannoli (which I just learned is the plural form, not cannolis.) So we each got one and they were seriously amazing. Hands down one of the most delicious things I have ever eaten. Since that day I have had momentary urges where I just want to drive there as fast as I can and buy a dozen of them. I hear they're pretty good for you so...that's a plus (I'm shaking my head.) But seriously. Everyone at some point in their life should have a cannolo (singular form) from Mike's Pastry. The rest of the day we would ask each other, "Hey do you remember when we had that cannoli? That was amazing." And I'm certain that this is a pattern that will continue throughout the remainder of our lives. After walking through Quincy Market, more of the North End, and the sea front, we took the subway back to Alewife, found my car, and drove back home to Hanover.

Mike's Pastry. Notice the many people and the many types of cannoli. I got the pistachio one, featured at the far left.

Ha ha...segue tours kill me. Those kids definitely looked at me when I took their picture. They knew how ridiculous they looked.

Taylor was really excited to see my abode (we decided to refer to sit as a flat from now on...sounds cooler.) He walked in and was quick to agree that the place was quite small. I literally had to move my little side table and chairs in order for the air mattress to fit ha ha. It was really funny--close quarters (it reminded us of our time at the Brookview sophomore year. Them's were some small rooms. ) We watched a couple of episodes of The Office, Season 4 (back when it was funny) before Taylor nodded off like a narcoleptic and we decided it was time to sleep.

That next day (Saturday) we got up early and drove...to Canada! Yes, I can drive to Canada from my house. For whatever reason, I have always wanted to go to Canada and i was really stoked to go. It was Taylor's first time going to Canada as well so the excitement levels in Job the Elantra were quite high. We pulled out our passports, answered a few questions at border patrol ("Why no, we aren't bringing any guns or weapons into your country this fine morning"), and crossed into Quebec! Just to confirm: yes, they use kilometers there. Yes, in Quebec, the official language is French. Yes, they use different money there. We had a pleasant drive as we finished our quest to Montreal (total trip time: 3 hours. Once again, we drove there from my house. Which is awesome. In Utah I could drive three hours and be in Idaho or Colorado or Southern Utah...Here, I can drive to Canada.)

Bon jour, Canada.

Well, suspicions concerning Montreal were confirmed: it's an incredible city. We hadn't really planned out our day there, figuring that we could just use Taylor's smart phone to figure things out. What we forgot were the serious roaming charges that would be incurred if we used our phones (we received reminder texts as we approached the border, thank you T-Mobile.) So we turned off our phones and did things the old fashioned way: we drove through the city, found a place to park, and wandered aimlessly until we could find a tourist place with maps. We did find such a place relatively quickly, and saw some cool things along the way. Montreal definitely has a cool, international, European vibe to it. And it really felt like we were in France when people would say things like "Bon Jour" to us, so that was cool. We walked through some cool neighborhoods, and I made a point to stop at this famous bagel place that claims to have the best bagels in Montreal and Toronto (Not sure how or why they decided they'd include Toronto in their claim, but it's Canada. They can do what they want.) Their other claim to fame was that bagels from their shop were the first bagels to go into space ("Alright everybody, be on the lookout for some good bagels. Our flight captain here really likes a good bagel, so bring me the best!" --"Ok boss, I went to Canada recently and I heard that the best place for bagels is in Montreal." "Very good son, go there and bring me some bagels. Godspeed." --"Aye aye captain." Or something like that...too far?) And really, the bagels were amazing. We watched them as they cut the bagels from a huge swath of dough and cooked them in a massive brick oven. We ate most of them the next day, toasted with butter and they were truly excellent.

Cool pic, nice work Taylor.

Our journey through Montreal led us through some really cool neighborhoods. Purchases of note included: a delicious pastry from a Greek bakery, some ridiculously cheap piano music (2 dollars vs. maybe 50 dollars) from an antique-type shop run by a nice lady from Hungary, and Canada Dry Ginger Ale (tastes better in Canada.) We ended our day in the historic district of Montreal. We walked through their replica of the Notre Dame Cathedral, and walked through a really cool part of town with cobblestone streets and street performers and great restaurants with outdoor seating. That part of town really felt European. We ate at this place that served a classic Montreal dish: Poutine. This dish is comprised of fries topped with gravy and cheese curds. Ahhhhhh yeaaaaaaah. An acquaintance of mine from Canada told me that I had to try it if I ever went to Montreal, so we did. It was actually really good, although I don't need to eat it for a long time..or ever again. We left the city around 8 and made the trip back to Hanover. We were definitely tired when we got back and went to bed, glad to have late church the next day.

Healthy.

Job...in Canada! (Oh yeah, another thing I liked about Montreal was the fact that there was hardly any traffic, and parking was really simple while not terribly overpriced.

We woke up in the morning (feeling like P. Diddy? No.), ate some French Toast (Viva Quebec!) and then I took Taylor on a walking tour of Hanover/Dartmouth. Like all who walk around Dartmouth, Taylor was very impressed. It's a beautiful campus. After the tour we went to church, then walked around the Connecticut River for awhile, came home, ate dinner, skyped with Amandsey, etc. Buenos noches.

Our final day was Labor Day. We woke up and drove to Quechee Gorge, which is this really cool place 15 minutes from my flat. We hiked around for a bit, then walked through this huge shop where we sampled a variety of cheeses and maple syrups and then semi-accidentally walked through the largest antiques store either of us had ever seen. It was...massive. We ended our time there with some hand-made ice cream which was quite tasty. We drove back to my flat (after a 20 minute-accidental detour, oops, sorry about that), Taylor packed up our stuff and we drove to the Manchester Airport.

Before the airport however, we made a quick stop at the nearby Robert Frost Farm. I'm a big fan of Robert Frost, and I can still remember word for word "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" which I had to memorize in my English class, senior year. Due to time constraints (which ended up being futile as Taylor's flight was delayed for 2 hours) we only were able to do part of the tour, but the part we saw was historic and interesting enough, so it was nice. Go Robert Frost. And New Hampshire.

Well, that was my Labor Day Weekend. It was pretty terrific. It was cool to have a house guest, which will probably never happen again during the year I'm here, and it was also really nice to hang out with someone that I've known for more than 2 months, a long-time friend. I really loved Boston and I hope to go several more times while I'm here. And I am just really, really happy to say that I have been to Canada. North America: check.

It's taking too long to upload pictures...I can almost hear my little Lenovo laptop giving up on life. I might post some more pictures later, I might not. Let's be honest, I'm not going to. Bon jour.

Adventures with Job & Steve Holt

Last Saturday I embarked on another hiking adventure with my trusty car. Our destination? Holt's Ledge (Steve Holt!) This relatively easy hike commences just 15 minutes away from my house, right outside of Lyme, NH. It is also part of the Appalachian Trail...pretty sweet. The coolest part was, of course, the view from the ledge. Here are some shots:

Job: 12 years young. Faithful amidst years of tribulations...mostly when Ben was at the wheel.

Cool rock.

This is the view from where the trail comes to an end.

On an unrelated note, this final photo goes out to Lindsey Craft and Amanda Lake. I made fried chicken and mashed potatoes and it was pretty darn delicious. Word.

Adventures with Job

After taking care of some important things this morning (sleeping in until 10, buying car insurance, calling Delta, sweeping, etc.) I took Job on an adventure to Mount Cardigan (elevation 3,121 feet). This lovely mountain (hill, in Utah terms) is only 25 miles from Hanover, just past Lebanon and Canaan (it's like I live in Bible Land).

Hiking a mountain in New Hampshire is like hiking a mountain in Utah, except for the oppressive humidity and lack of substantial elevation change (pretty sure I should not have exuded as much as sweat as I did). The hike was beautiful and the summit afforded some amazing views of the Upper Valley, stretching clear to the White Mountains (sounds made up, but it's not). Here are some pics:

For your information, Mount Cardigan was named when a newly-arrived-to-Canaan New Hampshirite woke up one morning (June 16th, 1897), looked eastward out his window and noticed this beautiful mountain. He then looked down at himself, noticed the maroon cardigan he was wearing, looked back up at the mountain, and loudly (and proudly) declared, "It shall be called...Mount Cardigan!"

The End.

Block Party: New England Style

So last Saturday, the people of Fairview Avenue (that's the street I live on) held their Annual Block Party. After seeing the posted signs and being invited by three different people in the days prior to the event, I made up my mind to go and meet, mix and mingle with the neighbors. And eat their free food.

This was not your average, run-of-the-mill, Utah Valley Mormon potluck. Although all present were dressed in casual attire, the food was anything but. Here's a sampling of some of of the food: Eggplant Parmigiana (for the vegetarian crowd, according to the toothpick-sign), homemade thin-crust pizzas: one with pesto and one with homemade tomato sauce, chocolate-walnut bars, a salad made entirely of vegetables from a local farm, artichoke dip, chocolate-dipped strawberries (the strawberries were grown by a neighbor), a variety of premium beers, and the option for make-your-own tonic and gins (or gin and tonics? I don't remember), and of course, quality hamburgers and hot dogs.

For entertainment, croquet was set up, and bocce balls were at our disposal (I played a rousing game of bocce ball with some people...and totally won. Bocce ball is my hidden talent apparently). After playing and eating I sat down with some of my neighbors and we ended up talking for a long time. They were all very friendly and we talked about local trails and places to see, winter weather (and survival), education in America, perks of living in Hanover, etc. They were incredibly friendly and I was amazed that we got along so well, being on average 20 years younger than most of them. It was a good time. Good food, good people, and good talk. A block party to remember.

Nature Walk

Sunday evening I went on a walk up to this cool forest near my apartment. I had run past it several times but I had never stopped to explore. Anyway, I brought my camera to try and take some good pictures but it was too dark, and I ended up getting only one good shot:

New Hampshire: Where all the license plates say: "Live Free or Die".

Go Dartmouth

Dartmouth has an amazingly beautiful campus. I hear it gets even better in the fall (and I'm not even going to think about the winter version of Dartmouth--I'll cross that bridge when it comes). Anyway, this is a picture of the famous Dartmouth green. At any given time there are clusters of students and others playing frisbee or sitting in circles or taking naps in the usually-somewhat-muted sun. Behind it is the famous Baker-Berry Library.

Here is a close up:

More to come later...