Happy ... errm ... Father's Day!?

Well, our glorious soccer run ended last week, we lost in the semi-final in the tournament at penalty kicks. We only had 3 girls on the field again so they are the players of the game; they had no subs, and had to pick up for the 2 girls that we didn’t have playing. The other team scored off a penalty kick in the last 3 minutes of regulation and they were up 1-0. Then in the last 30 seconds there was a hand ball by their team in their penalty box, so we got a penalty kick and tied the game up in its final seconds. Tied at 1-1 we went to a short sudden-death period that there were no points scored in. Then we went to shootout, and lost 3-4 there. It was a good run, and we played very well, “good games” were exchanged all around, and we hung up our cleats for the rest of the semester, which ends on Thursday mind you. There will be other semesters to play soccer and there will be other chances to win the vaunted intramural champion shirts.

I saw “Sarah, Plain and Tall” done by BYU last week also, I thought it was well done. A co-worker told me that it was awful; but I thought it was ok, especially since it was free for me.

I finished “The Once and Future King” last week also, and it does not end as happily as it began, but if you want a good little story, the first third of the book “The Sword in the Stone” is happy little read, Merlin will keep you chuckling. I started “Anna Karenina” by Leo Tolstoy and am about 20 pages into the nearly 1000 page work, it seems like easy reading so far. I also still have my mystery book I can read if I get bored with Anna.

Some exciting things happened at work last week also, at grounds we got a new small mower, and it is all shiny, sparkly, and squeaky clean, so I took a picture of it. I’ll include that at the bottom. On custodial crew there was a wood turning symposium (turning wood, like on a lathe) that went on in the building I clean from Thursday to Saturday(The symposium was thurs-sat). We got to come in and see the finished pieces and the stuff that the artist brought to sell and show off, I’ll include some pictures of that stuff; they are much cooler to look at than pictures of lawn mowers. But my building needed to clean for Saturday at 8 am, so our crew came in Friday night at 10pm and cleaned for about 4 hours, and made double wage for those 4 hours, so my next paycheck should be big and fat… and give me lots of money…along with being fat.

Time until I fly home is steadily approaching; soon I will be home for a little while.

-The Matador

New mower, old Mower

Click the pictures to make them look bigger

Dizzy with anticipation!!

I know some of my loyal blog viewers just can’t wait until I update so here goes. We won our intramural soccer game 2-1 in sudden death over time (it was tied 1-1 at the end of regulation) and we scored a goal off of a penalty kick, I was happy to have won, we were short-handed (or is it short-footed, or short-feet?) the entire game, because we only had 4 girls, you are allowed to play with just 3 but you should have 5, and that is what everyone else has.

Work was as exciting as ever, on grounds crew we got a new Foreman, he is very enthusiastic and provides popsicles and water coolers for us while we work in the hot afternoons. On early morning custodial our boss was telling us the virtues of coco-krispies, how it turns the milk into chocolate milk, and then he thought it might be better if you used regular rice krispies and just poured chocolate milk over them, then we cleaned rooms.

I received my package from home; (thanks mom) watched a few movies and did some reading. I spent some quality time with some very nice girls lately. There was a ward activity up at our bishop’s cabin up Provo canyon last night, we got together and played some pool, had a barbeque, played some Frisbee, then watched some short films that some people in our ward made, they were pretty funny.

The time until I fly home is coming closer and closer and I can hardly wait to see everybody back at home.

Included for your viewing pleasure is the creepy cookie that I made (the frosting was really runny) it was supposed to be a smiley face with it’s tongue sticking out and teeth and a pink line down the middle of the tongue, but it just turned out scary looking, so I gave it to my little sister, and she was very happy, and there was much rejoicing.

-The Matador

Check out all his majesty!

First off, a few comments about the blog, thank you to all those who left comments, not until CC gave threatening news to Paulo did I even know that I had to moderate comments, I thought that nobody was leaving any comments and that’s why there weren’t any appearing. So I will do better in the future, thank you for your patience.

In other news… our intramural team won our first tournament soccer game this morning due to some stellar playing from several team members, my old roomie Ben G also won his own legitimate intramural champion shirt in spring tennis I was there to watch his final game even though he won 8-0 they were fairly evenly matched, his opponent was just out of practice, oh… and Ben played well also, he is quite good as far as my former roommates go.

What else, I have been slacking in my reading, and am only nearly done with “The Once and Future King.” I have not gone out to see any of the summer blockbusters yet (none of them are at the dollar theater yet). I have consumed vast amounts of ice cream and Otter Pops and other various and sundry popsicles. We finally have a new foreman at work to replace the one that quit the day that I started on grounds. It has officially become hot out here, it will probably not cool down until fall, but it is only hot while the sun is up, it still is quite cool in the evenings and mornings. (It’s still cold enough at 4:00am that I want to wear a coat)

Inserted for your viewing pleasure is a random old picture of a few friends that got together at the end of winter semester. At far left is my cousin and former roommate Greg, then his wife Adriana, then Kristen a mutual friend, then me. (Don’t you think I look like the picture in my profile??)

Inanne speach and endless babble

The first part of my post is about the early morning. I wake up every week day at 4:00 am for work to do early morning custodial, and although I am well conditioned to waking up at that early hour, I still do not enjoy it. I was pondering this and I decided there are a few reasons for this: In bed it the best place to be, anywhere else is less desirable; 2^nd if you have to be awake at 4:00 am there is usually something wrong, think about who else is awake and working at that time, like police men and doctors, and that is only because there are things are going wrong.

So besides pondering reasons to get out of bed, this week was alright, I did some swimming for the first time in many years, and it was great fun, I’ll be taking a swimming class in the fall, so it is good to get some practice in. I also got a new calling last Sunday, I am the ward assistant executive secretary, I assist the executive secretary in his stuff, I call people and remind them about meetings and assign people to say the prayer in sacrament meeting.

We had a soccer game last Friday, we lost 3-0 against a much better team, they had a British guy on their team and also a former roommate, and we were again short handed, we have never had 5 girls playing at once. Next week the tournament begins for our soccer team, and hopefully we can put up a good showing for the final few games.

I also had a revelation this week about my job on BYU grounds, a friend pointed out to me that I am Groundskeeper Willy. For those of you who don’t know who he is, Groundskeeper Willy is a character from the Simpsons, he is the Scottish groundskeeper who works at the school that the Simpson children attend. He has a tendency to wear kilts and rip of his shirt to show off his chest. Mostly he’s really really funny; I’ll include a picture of him.

Just tonight I went out and watched “The Sands of Iwo Jima” with John Wayne, and on the way home found a giant chutes and ladders board drawn in chalk in a parking lot, so I did my best to round up a few people to go play a game, our team ultimately lost, but it was fun.

Groundskeeper Willy (I look something like that)

Victory and victory feasts

Well, another week has come and gone, and it has gotten a bit warmer, so while working grounds in the afternoon is slightly more miserable, but since the shift is only 4 hours things are alright. On Friday I bought creamsicles for our work crew, since it was a hot day. But enough about the boring stuff. On Friday night we had our second intramural soccer game, and we won by a forfeit, but then we played a scrimmage anyway, and won that also 1-0 it was a lot of fun despite being at 9:30 at night.

Then today (Saturday 13^th of May) we went to the riverwoods in north Provo and went to Tucanos restaurant for a last lunch for a guy in our ward. Tucanos is an expensive Brazilian Grill where they serve the food by carrying around the roasting spits that the food was roasted on, and they cut off pieces and you grab them with your tongs and put them on your plate. They mostly serve meat, but there is a salad bar, and you can get roasted pineapple and veggies. They feed you as long as you want them to, so anytime someone goes they gorge themselves on meat, but it is soooooo tasty, but a bit pricy so to go is a real treat.

Tonight I have plans to go and see Casablanca in the Varsity Theater after dinner with a girl.

Also a missionary that I served around moved into the ward with me, and he told everybody in the ward my unofficial nick-name that I had received in the mission, Special-K. Everything is going well, work is keeping me busy and there are a lot of fun people to do things with. Please drop me a line when you get a chance, it is good to hear from all of you.

Tucanos

Hedi, Sam, Nancy, Ben(he’s who’s moving out next week), Brandon, Paul(my roomate), me and a girl named Lisa is taking the picture

Me and the Fountian!!!

-The Matador