O.J. Mayo

I am fascinated by O.J. Mayo. This 18 year old kid from West Virginia is considered a top 5 basketball recruit out of high school by all media outlets. He committed to play at USC and will be playing next year at the university. His story is unique. In this interview with USC head coach Tim Floyd, he explains the recruiting process and his experience and opinion of Mayo.
(Below is the link to the article that Tony mentions in this interview)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/21/sports/ncaabasketball/21usc.html?em&ex=1174708800&en=8a97678a6bd362ef&ei=5087%0A

The craziest cactus I've ever seen!

While Beckie and I were in Arizona we stumbled upon this monster-of-a-cactus on our way to the desert botanical garden. We had to take some pictures. If you are ever in tempe or phoenix you can see this saguaro on the road after you have passed the phoenix zoo on the way to the botanical garden.

March Madness Day 1

The NCAA men's basketball tournament kicked off yesterday with 16 first round games. There were not many upsets. Through the first 8 games the top seeds had won every game. But, there was one upset and oh, it was an excellent. Duke lost to Virginia Commonwealth 79-77. VCU was led by point guard Eric Maynor who had 22 points, 8 assists, and shot with about 2 seconds left in the game that game VCU the win. When you look at Duke's season this isn't quite as much of an upset as you might think. Duke has been an average team all season and proved it again last night. This Duke loss momentarily made me forget about BYU's first round exit. It's a shame. As for my bracket, I got 12 of the 16 games correct and am doing ok in my pools. It's still early. Today there will be plenty more games to enjoy. As for now, enjoy the last few seconds of Duke's loss, I know I did.

Unfortunately, embedding for this video has been disabled so we are no longer allowed to enjoy it. Sorry.

February and March Madness!

So, it's been awhile since I last wrote. Beckie and I were married on February 24th in the Seattle Washington temple. It was a crazy yet very exciting time in our lives. It was good to see some family even though I didn't spend much time with them. We've been married for almost 3 weeks and are enjoying it very much. We're still getting settled into the apartment and decorating the rooms. We've put up several pictures and the addition of two large bookcases has made it more of a home. We worked on the extra bedroom and used Beckie's inovative mind to make a desk out of file cabinets and particle board. It looks great.

February and March are my favorite times of the year. February, well, because of my birthday and March because of college basketball. The greatest event in college sports will take place starting thursday and lasting until the end of the month. March Madness! I won't take time to give my predictions but I believe this will be a fun tournament like always. Go BYU!

5 days left!

Only 5 days until the big day for Beckie and me. It's becoming more real as the days go by. This morning I woke up early to take Beckie to the airport. I left home at about 5:45am and was surprised to awake to a snow storm. The past few weeks and especially the past few days have been beautiful. It has gradually gotten warmer and I have stopped wearing a coat. So, seeing snow was not the most pleasant of surprises.
Beckie and I started driving and as we got onto the freeway the snow became worse. We decided not to risk driving in the darkness with the snow and so were able to get another flight at a later time. Beckie went back to bed and I sat and watched some Simpsons before we left again for the airport. We finally got there and got Beckie on the 1:29 flight to Seattle.
So, the final week has begun. Beckie is in Seattle finishing up some preparations for the wedding and I will be there on Wednesday. Family and friends will be trickling in on thursday and friday with my parents the exception, who will be in Seattle for when Beckie goes through the temple for the first time on Wednesday night. A week from today Beckie and I will have been married for a couple of days. We will be starting our life together.

Peter Bjorn and John

I had to change the video for this entry. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the music video for Peter Bjorn and John's single "Young Folks"

Best Dunk Ever?

Growing up in the Phoenix area I've always loved the phoenix suns. From KJ, Majerle and Chambers to Nash, The Matrix and Stat. This is my favorite dunk by a phoenix sun and one of my top five in history. Just watch for yourself. Chambers jumps and keeps going up. It's as if he's flying. Enjoy!

Failure?

Up until the 2nd of December I never failed anything really significant in my life. Only once did I fail to making a sports team but that was because my heart was with tennis and not with baseball. In that case, I wanted to fail. So, when I took the LSAT on that fateful saturday and received my score a few weeks later I never really new what it was like. I did fail the most important test that I had ever taken, the one that would determine so much of my future.

But did I really fail this test?

Yes, I did spend the majority of that year studying for it. Every weekend I took a practice test and spent 3 hours in class nearly every weekday. But what for? All this test told me was that because of unforseen circumstances and because of one test score, schools wouldn't consider me for admission and I wouldn't be applying to law school that year. So what!

Did I really even want to go to law school?

When people asking me why I wanted to go to law school and me struggling for a concrete answer wasn't enough, this test maybe told me that I didn't have a good reason to go and that I should reconsider it. Finally, I did come up with a good reason, and that was to help those less fortunate (i.e. public interest or immigration law). I still think that that is a good reason but I'm not passionate about it.

So, now what do I do? I'm still in the process of figuring that out. The other option that I had along with law school was to do a master's and PhD in Spanish. This is something I really love and would love to give others the opportunity to learn about it.

I don't know. The next few months, along with getting married and starting a new life with Beckie will give some time to think and pray about things. We're still young and life has presented us with limitless opportunities. Only time will tell.

One month to go!

One month to go until Beckie and I leave our single days behind. It's kind of surreal. Am I excited? Well, I think the initial excitement has worn off because we've been engaged nearly 3 months. I'm pretty much just tired of waiting and want it to be over with so Beckie and I can start life together as a married couple.

It doesn't help that this past month has been pretty tough, not so much for me but for Beckie. First, there was the stolen purse and now this past weekend there was a fire in Beckie's apartment. Luckily, everything wasn't lost. Because the fire was concentrated between the walls it lacked enough oxygen to ignite anything outside of the walls. The damage was from the smoke. The furniture needs to be professionally cleaned and the clothes needed various washes. We did lose our large collection of board games including my favorite, Settler's of Zarahemla.

Despite all of this hassle, Beckie and I have been blessed to find an excellent apartment more centrally located behind Barnes & Noble in Orem. It is a nicer apartment and even less expensive. The landlord seems like a very nice person. We're very excited to live there together. We're moving in Beckie this weekend and then I'll gradually move things in up until the wedding. By the time we get back from Seattle, everything will be settled.