Been in the Saddle Since the Sun Came Up

This weekend I made a trip up to Idaho with two goals. One, see the girls. And two, ride a horse. I'm happy to say that I was able to get my fill with both (especially the horse part).

The girls. They are hilarious. Emma is able to spell a few words now and is happy to teach Jesse how to spell things. "Halloween. It's a 'h' and a 'a' and a 'i' and a 'i' and a 'o' and 'another one' and 'e' and 'e' and a 'n'." She couldn't decide what a 'w' was called, so it was another one. She is also an arachnophobe. Any spider she sees is at least six inches across. Seriously. They're huge.

Jesse is my shadow. And she loves to be tickled for some reason. (I promise, mom.)

Sara now has a noise for my name. "Dat!" Pretty close. She is full of antics... from strutting across the room like a model to trying to spell words like her big sisters to being a prize fighter.

The horse. I believe on of my first blogs was about a horse fiasco in Mexico. Refresh yourself if you need to by reading 'Blazing Saddles Part Dos' from February 2008. Saturday kind of reminded me of that day. Except that I had an obedient horse and my life was not in danger. Murphy (after whom Murphy's law was named) was definitely present in spirit.

Neto and I were to go ride up to Oxford peak with some friends of his, so we loaded the horses, tack, and food into the trailer and truck and were gone by 7:30. Just past Dayton one of the tires on the trailer blew out. Fortunately Dan was on his way to work, and stopped to help us remove the wheel to take into town for a new tire. So we rode into town, got the tire, put it back on the trailer and were to our starting point by about 9. Off we went.

The ride was wonderful. First we headed north toward Oxford town, and then found a trail that wound up through the hills there. Through a pine forest, and across creeks. We stopped once on the way up at a trough to water the horses. At about 1 we stopped for lunch only about a mile or two from the summit. Back on the horses for the last little bit to the peak. Once we were about to the top, there got to be a lot of rocks, so we tied the horses and hiked the last 50 yards to the marker. There were some notebooks to sign, I guess to have an alibi or something... We relaxed up there for about a half hour, just looking at all the mountains, lakes, fields, etc. There were a lot of birds that were floating up on thermals and other winds coming up through the valleys that were fun to watch.

Once everyone was ready to go, we were back in the saddle and headed down the mountain. Someone decided that we should not go back the way we came, but instead we should go down through Davis basin into Clifton. This proved to be enjoyable for the new scenery, but very long for the riders. We had a lot of fun playing 'tag' all the way down. This created a need to race at times, which of course was thrilling. We also had "wrestling" matches, where we would attempt to push other horses off the trail. By the time we got to Davis lodge I think everyone was ready to get off their horse, so at the bottom of the switchbacks we sent a rider ahead to get the truck and trailer to meet everyone at the bottom of the road that leads up into the canyon. Before too long, the trailer was back and we began to load the horses, but found out on the way into Clifton that it had two flat tires. We stopped at Papa Jay's to put some air in and then drove back down towards Oxford. From there, Neto and I hopped in his truck to go pick up our horses that we had left in Clifton... but going along with theme of the day, his truck ran out of gas. Luckily we were still in the driveway and they had gas, so we poured in a couple gallons and were able to make it to Clifton. After filling up and loading the horses, we were homeward bound. To cap off the day, a dear tried to hit us between Clifton and Dayton.

We got home at about 9 pm. I would estimate the trip was about 20 miles, a vertical climb of about 4,000 feet and we figured we were in the saddle for about 9 hours. It was a long day and left me fairly sore... mostly raw on the insides of my legs. But, even though the day was a bit rough, I had a lot of fun and I doubt I'll ever spend more time on a horse in one day. Unless perhaps gas prices get more out of control.

Whoa... It's still here. I thought they may have deleted it because of inactivity. Hmm. O well.

So it is now the end of September... a few short months since my blog about the Rockies. Poor Rockies. Ah, but not poor BYU. You guys been watching them?

The Stormin' Mormons are now the #11 team in the land. I've been able to witness three of their victories in their 4-0 record to date. The first one was a bit boring, against Northern Iowa I think? It was closer than it needed to be (as we showed against UCLA), but a victory nonetheless.

Next came a big game in Seattle against the U of W. We dominated most of the game, but again way closer than it needed to be. Especially when everyone thinks that it came down to a poor call made by a referee. If you didn't see snippets of it on any sports show for that entire week, Washington's quarterback ran the ball in for a 4 or 5 yard touchdown to bring them within one point with about 2 seconds left in the game. All they needed was to hit the extra point and it would force overtime. Well, of course UW QB Jake Locker was excited for that reason and proceeded to hurl the ball into the air in celebration. Too bad NCAA rules (this one in particular has been the focus of the officials since the beginning of the season) prohibit "Throwing the ball high into the air." Thats the rule straight from the 2008 rulebook. Seriously. I looked it up. Anyhow, the ball had some good hangtime... 2-3 seconds, I could do the physics real quick... I'm gonna go with about 25-30 feet. The official flagged him for it and the penalty was to move the extra point back 15 yards. Big deal, the 20 yd chip shot turned into a 35 yd chip shot, something that even the worst of college kickers should be able to nail. Well... we blocked it. It was sweet. It was so sweet that our team got flagged for excessive celebration when they all ran out on the field. But it didn't matter because there were only two seconds left and they had to kick it to us. So we won. Cool. (See Video)

Then came UCLA... a game I was rather nervous about since they had beaten a ranked Tennessee team the week before (who actually has turned out to not really be very good). But that made the game all the more exciting. This was actually the third time we had played UCLA in the last year. Once during the regular season last year, then in a bowl game around Christmas time, and then now. There is also some drama between the teams over a QB that said he'd play at BYU, then after his mission decided to go to UCLA (and hasn't been completely healthy since) and also over a field goal that we blocked to win the bowl game, seen here. Well... This picture says it all. Yes, you read right, 59-0. That was good times. Highlights.

And then yesterday we took on the brave 'Pokes of Wyoming. The outcome was slightly more merciful, a 44-0 drubbing. I snapped this picture just before the game. Highlights.

So here we are, 4-0 with our next game against lowly Utah State. It'll probably be another bore of a blowout... which I'm fine with.

In other news... school is going well so far. I'm taking a statistics class that is already giving me nightmares. I don't know if I've ever understood so little at the beginning of a semester. I have an intro to Biology class which is a joke...but will fill the requirement. I have a Material Removal (or machining) class that is my favorite of all. So far we've been working on the metal lathes, and are in the process of creating our own hammers. I'm taking the second half of New Testament from the same professor that I took the first half from. Think Indiana Jones dressed as Mr. Rogers. Thats Professor Griggs. He's an egyptologist (as in every summer he goes to egypt to dig up dead people), ancient historian, and knows more languages than I knew existed. I also have a Statics class which is the branch of mechanics concerned with the analysis of loads (force, torque/moment) on physical systems in static equilibrium, that is, in a state where the relative positions of subsystems do not vary over time, or where components and structures are at rest. It's exciting. And thats about it.

And now I have spent way to long updating my blog. But at least it is updated. Amen.