My Weekend

It's hard to believe, but I'm just now coming to the end of last weekend. Tomorrow (Friday) will be my first full day of work all week (it will also be my birthday). I hadn't planned it this way.

Here are some of the highlights from our recent trip to Utah:

• Playing an executive golf course with my Dad and essentially playing bogey golf (if we forget about two holes). This should be all the more inspiring since: (1) I used rented left-handed clubs that were terribly short; and (2) I'm pretty sure I tore my rotator cuff in my right shoulder during an ill advised arm-wrestling match with my younger brother Nathan over the Christmas break (please don't ask--I didn't win). I should probably see a doctor about it.
• Jared and I collectively saved $40 by letting my mother give us haircuts
• Getting into the Sunday morning session of General Conference despite the fact that our tickets were for Saturday morning. You see, I'd requested Sunday morning tickets from the Bishop, so I foolishly thought when he gave me tickets they'd actually be for Sunday morning. When we got to the Conference Center and had our tickets scanned on Sunday morning, though, they registered as invalid. So for a moment I thought we'd have to go home unfulfilled--but it turns out they just let us in anyway. Now I guess I know how to get into future sessions, though I suspect it might not work as well if the mistake isn't so innocent.
• Taking a vanilla ice cream taste testing challenge arranged by my father. One of my earliest posts to this blog was about how Breyer's ice cream is near divinity. This seemed to irk my father, especially when I called into question his analysis of what makes for good ice cream during the last annual Clark Milkshake making contest. So last weekend he bought 8 different kinds of vanilla ice cream to see if I knew what I was talking about. He put samples of each into cups, numbered, them, and then had me taste each and decide which I liked the best. Guess which one I chose as the best? Guess which one my siblings chose as the best? Guess who owes me a formal apology? (As far as other notable results, Haagen Daaz did come in second, and some carb-saver vanilla cozied up the the yellow Walmart vanilla for last place).
• Oh yes, Michelle and I also happened to get terribly sick. Sunday evening, Michelle felt pretty sick. My little brother Peter felt pretty sick. My mom felt pretty sick. Then I felt pretty sick (and apparently my sister Leanne felt pretty sick after returning to BYU). Just imagine the five of us taking turns in the bathroom vomiting through the night. We were supposed to fly home Tuesday morning, but Monday evening it wasn't clear we'd even be able to survive the trip home. This actually lead to an argument about whether we could survive the trip and whether it was worth forking out the money to change our tickets, and what on Earth I was supposed to do about work. Those kind of late night "discussions", especially when augmented by sickness on both sides, always make for good times. We ended up braving our way home, and then crashing for the next few days. Today, Thursday, I finally felt like I could go back to work--though I left at lunch time still feeling a bit weak. Kind of a disastrous end to things, and now I'm hopelessly behind at work.
• The good news is, though, that I was in first place in my fantasy baseball league after opening day. [The glory was short lived, and the Cubs are already near the bottom of their division. I did get the ice cream thing right though].