What Happened to July?!?

I can't believe how fast summer goes by. I wish winter would go by half so fast, but no. It draaaaags on for-seemingly-ever.
July has been a somewhat mellow month. Work is still slow, but at least holding steady and not getting any worse. I'm a month away from my half-marathon at Disneyland and still doing well with training. And by "doing well" I mean "no injuries." Both of my roommates have been having foot and knee trouble since they began running, so I guess I'm extremely lucky. I've also begun some weight training. I'm not trying to get buff or anything, just add some tone to my scrawny little self. I don't know when the results will be noticeable, but something must be changing. I thought I was constantly hungry before. Now its absolutely ridiculous how fast I burn through groceries. I just ate dinner 3 hours ago after work, my tummy is already growling for more.
Ok, since returning from Vegas, my summer of 80's music has continued. A couple of weeks ago I went to the Journey/Heart/Cheap Trick concert. We ran late and missed Cheap Trick completely, which bummed me out. Heart was performing when we got there. I gotta say, after all these years, that woman still has some serious pipes. I forget the musicians names. But I know the guitarist is her sister, and she still pretty much rocks as well. LOVED the guitar solos. We sang along with "Barracuda" and "Magic Man" and they did "Crazy On You" (my personal favorite) as their encore.
Journey was the main event, and they lived up to the hype. I was a bit taken aback at first. They have a new lead singer. He's a young kid from the Phillippines, which was not what you think of when you picture Journey. He's yet another YouTube find, that seems to be the place to get replacement singers. And he does sound exactly like the original singer. Plus has the added advantage of youth, so he was quite the bouncy little showman. He could definitely work the crowd. The fact that he wasn't bad lookin' helped with that, I'm sure. Really, what could be better than belting out Journey songs with a few hundred drunken strangers? And belt we did. I again forgot my camera, but my friend brought her's so if I get pics I'll post them later.
The next week was the Police concert, which both Amanda and Chrystie have done a good job blogging about so I don't have to. I will say I really liked the way they did "Wrapped Around Your Finger" Totally a different sound than I've heard it done before. I wish I could describe it, but can't think of the right words. Almost exotic, slower and stripped-down. Meh. Anyways, very cool.
I had an adventure last Friday and got to go outrigger canoeing. My little bit of regular canoeing expirience came handy so I didn't feel completely useless. A friend of the family, Kwan Ki (Ben) Au found me on the internet and invited me to come out. His father and his father's friends have been wanting to reconnect to their polynesian roots, and so have started canoeing on the weekends. Besides Kwan Ki and Mr. Au, I'm not entirely sure who was related and who was not. There were about a dozen people there, with lots of "uncle" and "aunt" being thrown around, but it seemed more an honorary title than actual relation. Everyone was very welcoming and friendly. They were a very easy-going, good-natured group and very easy to feel comfortable around.
The actual paddling was easier than I thought it would be. There are 6 to a canoe, with one steering. I suppose having 4 other paddles stroking at the same time as mine made it feel like less work. The only time I struggled is when we would sprint for a swell, then my arms burned a bit. I did get a bit raw at the base of my left thumb, but that was the only pain I felt the next day. Other than the bug bites on my shoulder.
The next day after work my friend Jeff and I drove up to Ogden to the Raptors game. Amanda got tickets from work so we got in free! Yay! We didn't realize it was a double header from a previously rained-out game and came in towards the end of the first game. But we did get to see the second game, which they won. It was a good night for a game, too. We were out of the sun, so it was pretty much the perfect temperature. After the game, Jeff said he was having a craving for a shake, so of course I took him to Jake's before heading home. Apparently if you're there when its not busy, they'll custom-make shakes for you. I had no idea!
So now you're all caught up with what's been going on in my neck of the woods. I'll try to do better at keeping this thing updated.

Las Vegas in Pictures

Here are some pictures from the Vegas trip, in no particular order.

Happy to be eating dinner!

Me, Scotty, and Ryan getting silly, it was late
The view of the pools from our room
Me and Kristi at Ceasar's Palace. Ignore the statue.

Rome and Scotty on the shuttle

Ryan thinking very hard on the shuttle
The BYU kids. Rome, Denhi, and Brian
Boston
Styx, obviously

Vegas, Baby!

Last weekend I went to Vegas for the first time in about 4 years. It was great fun :-) I'll post pictures when I get some. Not used to having a camera yet, so I'm afraid it spent the whole trip in my bag and never got used, poor little thing. Anyways, we left Friday morning. There were 7 of us in all, 4 in our car that left that morning, and another 3 that came down later. Our car consisted of me, Kristi (owner of the car) and her friends Ryan and Scotty that both came in from different states for this shindig. Ryan from Georgia, and Scotty from Rexburg, Idaho. The car ride was fairly uneventful, pretty much just getting to know each other as the only one any of us knew was Kristi. But we all got along very well and it wasn't long before we were doing what we do best, making fun of each other. The 3 that came down later were Kristi's younger brother Bryan, his girlfriend Denhi, and another friend, Rome, that all attend BYU. We didn't really hang out with the younger 3 much, so mostly it was just the 4 of us that drove down together.

We stayed at the Wyndham. Its a very nice timeshare condo place just off the strip. The best part was the pool area was open all night long! Since its still 95 degrees at 4 in the morning, I utilized this both nights we were there. Not a lot of sleeping going on in Vegas. The first night we got settled in, chilled at the pool for a while, then decided to go check out the nightlife on the strip. As we were deciding where to go for dinner, we found some guys passing out free admittance to a bunch of the clubs. We were skeptical about this as the clubs on the strip tend to be expensive, but it turned out to be the real deal. Well, for me and Kristi, anyway. The guys had to pay $30. We went to Jet at Ceasar's Palace. It was very, very crowded. But the music was good and we had a great time, even though it was $6 for a tiny bottle of water. The 2 of us that stayed longer ended up getting lost and wandering around Vegas for about an hour or so before we finally found our way to our hotel. Neither of us knew how much it would cost for a cab, and didn't have much cash between us. Walking is not fun after a night of dancing, and I thought I had it bad in heels. But Scotty had it worse, his foot was bleeding where his shoe was rubbing against his heel by the time we got back to the room. Ouch. To celebrate our not getting mugged, we went swimming before bed and crashed the party of a couple who were probably hoping to have the pool and hot tub to themselves for some private time. Heeheehee, bonus!!!

The second day we slept in, and spent more time in the pool. It was too hot to do anything else, really. That evening we all went to the Boston/Styx concert. It rocked!! Styx was first. Those are some energetic old dudes. They were all over the stage and having a great time. Boston was not quite as hyper, but still a good show. I was wondering how they were going to pull it of since their lead singer commited suicide last year. But according to Kristi's little brother, they found their new guy on youtube singing in a Boston tribute band. He sounds JUST LIKE the other guy! I was blown away. A couple of their songs went on a couple minutes longer than they probably should have, but overall still a great show. My ears were ringing for the rest of the night. Temporary deafness is always the sign of a good night, right? We tried to make it back to the strip in time to ride the roller coaster at the New York New York, but missed it by 5 minutes. Silly thing closes at midnight. Scotty had never been to Vegas before and was determined to do some gambling, so we hung out and watched him lose his money for a while. There had been much teasing between the boys and girls about trying to pick up on people while in Vegas. We had been very supportive of the boys' goal to talk to as many girls as possible, and had even scouted out some good targets for them a couple times. They were pretty smooth and did pretty well. But as soon as some hot Australian guys came over to talk to Kristi and I, the boys suddenly decided its time to gamble somewhere else. Punks!! Guys and their fragile little egos. . .

So after another 4 A.M. swim we hit the sack and slept in. I was sharing a room with Bryan's girlfriend, Denhi. Denhi is half Spanish and therefore, very excited that Spain's soccer team was in the Euro finals. We were the first two up, but after our hooting and hollering while watching the game in our room, it wasn't long before everyone else was awake. It was between Spain and Germany, and as I didn't really have a preferrance, I jumped on the Spain bandwagon. They were the underdogs, but won anyway. Yay! After that we hung out for a little while longer, then packed up and reluctantly headed home. There's talk of another Vegas trip in a couple of months, but we shall see if it actually happens. I was a total water-drinking slacker the whole weekend. I believe I dehydrated myself too much and it caught up with me last night, I haven't been feeling too great today. So I've been drinking lots of water, now I'm going to sleep and hopefully will be all better tomorrow.