Two Thousand Fifteen!

It has become my yearly tradition to look back on my year, and list a whole bunch of stuff that either was a first time, major accomplishment, check mark on the bucket list, or just something I feel like bragging about!  Since it's the first week of the new year, here goes my list!

Major Events

• Promoted to a new office.  I moved from Taylorsville down south to American Fork.
• Became a lead doctor of the office.  This was the first time I've worked independently without another dentist in the office.  It's been a challenge, but also a major growing experience.  Plus, my staff is amazing!
• Commuting.  I kept my townhouse in West Jordan, meaning I have a round trip commute of about 45 miles each work day.  I never thought I'd become a commuter, especially since I'm not a morning person.  Yet another growing experience.
• Apartment hunting.  In August I thought very seriously about moving southward.  After viewing several apartments ranging from The District to Traverse Mountain, and even putting down an application fee, I decided to stay put in West Jordan. 

The Physical Side

•  5ks! Despite my somewhat reduced dedication to daily running, I still got in six 5ks this year.
•  Potter virtual run, Star Wars run, Dirty Dash mud run, Gamer dash, Color Run, Doctor Who, and a random zombie walk.

• Weight change: 0.5 pounds give or take.  This may not seem like a lot, but because I lost 30 pounds last year, I'm thrilled to keep steady.  I had a personal trainer for a year and a half, and after my contract ended I managed to keep myself motivated.  This means the lifestyle changes I implemented two years ago have actually stuck!

Misadventures

• Rode home in a cop car after my car broke down on Bangeter Highway
• First time calling a tow truck
• First medical xrays (besides dental xrays)
• First major injury: a severely sprained wrist.
• Thanks to the timing of my job transfer, I was witness to the entire construction process of the I-15 around the point of the mountain.  Seriously, I started commuting in March, and they started work the week after.  I think they might almost be done?
• Exploded a Diet Coke can in the front seat of my car.

Travels

• Disney World and Universal Studios.  May I had the chance to go with my dear friend Rachel to Florida as a plus one chaperon for the DECA competition.
• Harry Potter land! I was far too excited about Potter land, and Butterbeer, and magic!  This was definitely a check on my bucket list. 

• Florida with QiQi.  Another dear friend got engaged, and married in Florida this past year.  I was lucky enough to be invited.
• Orlando Temple.  I got to go to a session, and a sealing with QiQi and her new family.  What an amazing experience.
• Universal Studios.  Since I was already there, I decided to go back to Potter land, and relive it all over again.
• Hiking.  So much hiking!  Thanks to my good friend Kyle, I really got into the sport.  Seriously, I now posses hiking sticks, special hiking boots, and an Osprey backpack!

• Disneyland / California.  What else is new?  This was an accomplishment mainly because I went from Florida to California within about three weeks.  I definitely got my Disney fill for the year!

Family Fun

•  Tubed down the Provo River.  Another bucket lister.  For some reason I had been wanting to do this for quite some time.  I convinced the fam to come participate over Independence day weekend.  It was freezing, and a total blast!

• Stadium of Fire.  I'd heard about this event in years past, and finally got to experience the awe-inspiring number of fiery explosions.
• Journey live in concert at the Stadium of Fire.  Amazing!!  I'm a complete classic rock junkie, and I'd include Journey in that genre.  This was the most fun I've ever had at a concert.
• Payson temple open house.  The first temple open house I really remember, and especially appreciate.  Not to mention the first one since I've been endowed. 
• Attended temple sealings for two of my cousins. 
• Mitchell came home from his mission in South Africa, and I was one of the first people to meet him off the plane!

Random Accomplishments

• Used an entire bottle of perfume.  Seriously, I own about fifteen bottles of perfume, and never actually accomplished this!

•  Utilized an entire spool of thread.  First, but certainly not the last time I'll be doing this.  Apparently I do a lot of sewing.

• Podcasting.  Thanks to the amount of time I typically spend in the car commuting, I've gotten really into podcasting to avoid road-raging.
• Favorites include Serial, Filmspotting, Radiolab, This American Life, and The Fandom Podcast.
• Became a regular at J Dawgs with a "usual" and everything.

Fun Activities

• Comic Con and FanX!  This was a whole pile of exciting fun, including cosplaying, panels, meeting a whole bunch of amazing people, and getting to meet a slew of celebrities.
• Matt Smith, Billie Piper, Dean O'Gorman, James and Oliver Phelps, Karen Gillen, Tom Felton, Paul Wesley, Ian Somerhalder, Stephen Yeun, Hayley Atwell, Sebastian Stan, Manu Bennett, Carrie Fischer, and Chris Evans.
• Guinness World Record.  I, and my fellow comic-book enthusiasts, became the largest gathering of people dressed as comic book characters.  We even got a commemorative pin for the occasion! 
• Cosplay.  Thanks to ComicCon and Halloween, I constructed several new outfits this year.  That included props, and elaborate hairstyles.
•  Link (Nintendo's Zelda), Galadriel (Lord of the Rings), Captain America, Bad Wolf Girl (Doctor Who) and Jedi Knight.

• Movie Marathons.  For some reason I'm way too proud of the fact I can hang out at the movie theater for hours at a time.
• Avengers.  26.5 hours straight in the theater.  This was in preparation for Age of Ultron.  It was excellent!
• Star Wars.  Midnight to 9:30 pm marathon event (21.5 hours).  Unlimited popcorn, Diet Coke, Twitter trivia wars, and prizes.
• STAR WARS.  This is an event all of its own, and basically took over my life for most of December, and probably for January too.  Between May the Fourth, Force Friday, trailer drops, Fandango crashing with pre-sales, joining the Rebel Legion, meeting Princess Leia herself (Carrie Fischer), and seeing the Force Awakens opening night (and three times more), it's been a constant source of entertainment.

 

• Joined the Rebel Legion
• The Rebel Legion is a charity cosplay group consisting of the good guys from Star Wars.  We dress up as movie accurate characters and attend charity events, or miscellaneous Star Wars events.  You have to go through a pretty strict approval process to join. 
• My approved character is a generic Jedi.  I custom designed and put together the entire outfit, including the extra props.

 

• Saw Kenny Chesney live in concert with some old friends. 
• Real soccer game with Kyle.
• Scottish Festival.  And yes, I wore a real Scottish kilt brought to me from Scotland!
• Crazy hairstyles.  My hair's getting a little long, especially with addition of extensions.  Thanks to Pintrest, I learned to fishtail braid, dutch braid, do victory rolls, and - my personal favorite - Mohawk braid!

Please forgive all the selfies... don't judge, I live alone!

• Movies at the Theater.  53.   

  

  Feast your eyes on an entire years worth of movie ticket stubs!  Apparently I like the theater...

   Happy 2016!  I'm excited to see what the new year brings.

Weekly snippet - May 2015

May 12, 2015

I found this guy I never published from back when.  It's basically just rambling, but thought I'd throw this out there!

It's been two weeks since I got back from Florida, and I've pretty much managed to put my life and schedule back in order.  Also, likely due to lack of sleep during my vacation, I immediately came down with some kind of persistent cough.  In case you were curious, dentistry and persistent coughing doesn't mix!  I was coughing all through last weekend, and Tuesday through Friday at work I was living on cough drops and lots of water.  

Funny story.  It got a little bit hot for the afternoon on Tuesday, and I had an unopened can of Diet Coke sitting on my passenger seat.  On my way home from work I stopped off at Costco.  Prior to exiting my car I quickly emptied my purse of unnecessary items such as a book, and my heavy aluminum water bottle.  Suddenly there was an incredible explosion that left my ear ringing for the next five minutes.  It took me a good thirty seconds to recover from my shock enough to figure out the water bottle had hit the warm can of soda hard enough to cause it to explode.  I finally recovered enough to grab the ruptured can and get it outside the car, but I had a pretty good sized pool in the seat, and spatters all over the dash, window, door, and ceiling.

For the first time ever, I took my car to be detailed.  Usually I quite enjoy washing and vacuuming my own car, but it was nice to let the professionals shampoo out my Coke soaked seat.  Speaking of compulsively needing to wash my filthy, bug-smeared exterior - it still hasn't happened!  Here in the Salt Lake Valley it's been a near constant overcast or thunderstorm since I've gotten back from Florida.  What's more, I've absolutely loved it!  Yesterday was my day off, and I basically just hung around the house doing cleaning projects, and it's been pouring outside with intermittent thunder.  It's been very relaxing.

Ever since I can remember I've always loved the rain.  When I was a kid I used to think the best activity was taking a blanket and going to the movies while it was raining.  When I was in Omaha I used to throw open the window to listen to the rolling thunderstorms that frequented the region.  Maybe it's the fact that I grew up in Southern Utah where rainstorms seemed to be few and far-between.  Either way, I would be happy if it just kept raining for another week or three!  As an added bonus, it seems to keep all the hyperactive neighborhood kids indoor, at the very least.  Bad for the parents, but good for me, the child-less, dog-less  neighbor who tires of their overactive offspring yelling right outside the window.

Saturday I woke with the strangest compulsion to get myself to the beach.  Going to the beach was my weekend ritual for a year in Maui, even (or especially) when it rained.  It's been nearly two years since I moved back to the Mainland, but that compulsion to get to the sea shore still hasn't dissipated.

Keawakapu beach, Maui.  March 2013.

I felt such a strange sense of aimless sadness, and instead got myself outdoors to enjoy the beautiful rain.  I also finally got to check out the aquarium.  I headed there with my friend Dave, and seeing all the marine life seemed a good substitute for actually going to the ocean!

Other things I've accomplished.  I discovered a way to eat an entire pineapple by yourself before it expires.

Pineapple with a little bit of yogurt and ice in a blender equals a delicious tropical smoothie.  However, it was very unusual because it didn't melt, and instead left weird pineapple fibers all over the sink when I washed the dishes.  Since we're on the topic of cooking experiments, I decided sometime in the last week or so that I wanted to learn to make creme brûlée.  If you're not familiar with the dessert, it's this incredibly decadent pudding that requires a torch!  I went out and acquired ramequins (special ceramic dishes) and a hand torch, then proceeded to put together my fancy French dish.

I think it turned out quite nicely!

SLCC15 - Saturday

Okay it took me a couple of months, but here goes the last installment of my ComicCon adventures.  This was on Sept 26th.

What a wild and crazy weekend!  I was sad to think I only had one day left of ComicCon.  Because of all the hype surrounding the Captain America cast in attendance, one of the most highly anticipated events was the Chris Evans and Anthony Mackie panel to be held on Saturday morning.  To combat the inevitable crowds of people willing to wait in line for hours to get a seat, the staff at SLCC made the event a lottery entrance.  Essentially everyone who had purchased a ticket to the con was eligible to put in the lottery for a possible slot.  This made sense, but saddened me since I figured with over 100,000 people in attendance, my chances were a bit low to be drawn out of the lottery.  This is where my excellent VIP ticket really came through.  Apparently having VIP greatly increased your odds, and after checking my email all through Thursday and Friday, I found out Friday night I had been granted entrance!  However, my line-up time for the 10 o'clock even was 7:40am.  Fantastic.

Early morning at the Salt Palace.

To ensure time to drive downtown, find parking, and put together my outfit for the day, it made for a very early morning.  The actual con floor didn't even open till 9:30, so the only people at the Salt Palace were there for the Evans panel, or the Superhero 5k.  Seriously, if everything else wasn't going on, I totally would've been up for the run.  Especially since Sean Austin was in the running!

Recognize him?  This is good old Samwise Gamgee.  Apparently he's good at running as well as walking to Mordor (and crying).

As it was, I was pretty excited I actually got to park in the Salt Palace lot, which had a "lot full" sign in front of it the two previous days.  It was a lot closer, and slightly cheaper than parking at the mall.  With my VIP status, and my lottery ticket to the panel, I went straight in through weapons check, and right to the ballroom.  I got a pretty good seat right in the center seating panel with a straight line of sight to the stage.  Since it was a good two hours before panel start, I got a close-up photo with the Captain motorcycle.

I then settled into my seat with my iPad to watch the new season of Arrow!  It kept me pretty entertained until the empty seat next to me was filled by an exceptionally large woman.  I felt like I was on an airplane, having to give up half my seat for the next three hours.  Even worse, I'd arrived at least 40 minutes prior to this woman.  Super frustrating.  Despite that, we got all kinds of excited as they continued to make fun announcements.  For instance, if it's the sort of thing you care about, #SLCC15 was the number one trending topic on Facebook and Instagram in the world!  That's right, Utah is famous.

Finally around 10:30, the panel got going.  It kicked off with an awesome montage of the films Chris Evans has been in, and finally the man himself!

Chris with the two founders.  I'm somewhere right in the center!

This panel was so high energy, it was insane!  First thing he got talking about was how everyone seemed nervous getting photos and asking for hugs with him.  He then happily announced that anyone who wanted was welcome to hug him!  What a nice guy.  Also, wish I had known that a day earlier when I had my chance to meet him.  The emcee talked with him for a bit, then they got to the fan questions.  A lot of them wanted tidbits from the new Captain America movie, Civil War.  Marvel is keeping that plot pretty close to the chest, so Chris was pretty restricted on what he could answer.  He also talked a little bit about his anxiety and acting process.  However, Chris kept getting interrupted by his costars just wandering in behind him.

Both Anthony Mackie and Hayley Atwell showed up unannounced during Chris' panel.  It was like a fun little reunion!

Hayley didn't say much, leaving most of the talking to Chris.  He actually gave pretty serious, thought-out answers to most of the fan questions.  Because they're on "off season," all three of the Captain guys were lamenting about how small they were, and how excited they were to be off the restricted diet and workout schedule.  Chris even had a nice little beard going because he's currently filming a role as a philosophy professor.  One of the favorite questions had to do with Civil War, and whose side Chris Evans would be on.  Without revealing any spoilers from the movie, and going strictly from the comic book story, we know that Cap and Iron Man will be on opposite sides of an argument having to do with superhero registration.  (Look out guys, I'm getting deep with the comic books!  I still have never read the comics, just have friends that do...)  Chris gave a somewhat convoluted answer, but the upshot is that he saw himself as being more on Iron Man's side of the argument.  I'm pretty intrigued to see the new movie now!

He got a couple more questions in before ending the panel.  We were sad to see him go, but Anthony Mackie more than made up for it.  He stayed for another hour, and was all kinds of entertaining!  As one of the few African American heros in film, he got several questions towards that point.  He told an amusing story about filming a scene where he swoops onto a rooftop as the Falcon.  During the stunt work he basically swung as a pendulum on a rope that was lowered as he swung so he could make contact with the ground.  The stunt man made it through just fine, but when it came time for Anthony, whoever was holding the rope slipped, and he ended up skidding along the ground face-first.  It was a nice face plant, followed by nonchalantly jumping up saying, "what's up Tony?"  At some point the emcee challenged him to a push-up contest, which Anthony won with style.  Apparently he's very accomplished at push-ups, and has even bested Sebastian Stan and Chris on set!

After all the Captain America fun, most of the people cleared out of the Ballroom.  However, I decided to stick around for the next panel for Ian Somerhalder.  I first saw him in Lost, but now love him from Vampire Diaries.  This guy had actually flown in to the Salt Lake Airport just that morning.

Ian actually plays a pretty major role in several environmental endeavors, explaining why he is so busy between that and filming.  It was neat to hear a bit about what he and his wife were doing to promote caring for the environment.  On to the questions.  He was asked what his favorite scene to film was, and he brought up a scene where Damon is drunk in the bathtub, and apparently while filming he was just straight up naked.  I guess at the end of the scene he jumped up and just started wandering around set naked.  He joked about how quickly he cleared the room full of male support staff.  He then went on to talk about how filming a TV series really generates a feeling of family between everyone, simply because you're working together for years at a time.  Besides, they had all seen him naked.  Haha!

While exiting this panel I somehow managed to drop my phone.  In a huge semi-dark room with hundreds of people, I was kinda freaking out about trying to locate it.  After no luck re-tracing my steps, I found a nice guy who let me try to call my phone.  Luckily some nice person had already picked it up and turned it in (instead of stealing it!), so I was back in business.  Seriously, I've got insurance on my phone if it vanished, so the worst part about loosing it was loosing my camera for the day!  Taking photos is one of my favorite activities at the con!

Captain Picard taken over by the Borg!  I thought that was pretty creative.

After that I wandered around and found some awesome cosplayers.  I'm going to ramble about these guys for just a minute.

This is a group called the Rebel Legion, and they are composed of Star Wars costumers who attend charity events dressed as movie accurate Star Wars characters.  This is a group I'm actually interested in joining, and they have a fairly rigorous set of requirements for their outfits.  That Saturday I wore my Jedi outfit, and took a moment to check with these guys on my accuracy.  You are actually required - down to some specific measurements - to have a certain number of accessories, etc to qualify.  Hence the new lightsaber attached to my screen-accurate belt.  I even made "Jedi food capsules" which you can see attached to my belt.  Yeah, I never really noticed those things on the movies...  Anyway, aside from one more accessory, I'm basically qualified!  Hooray.  I hope you guys wanted to know all of this stuff.

Forgive the poor quality.  I didn't get a digital copy of this one.

My next scheduled event was a photo op with Hayley Atwell, or Captain Carter.  Due to the high-profile celebrities present, the lines for the photo ops were a bit of a zoo.  Seriously, I waited in line forever, even with a VIP pass.  While waiting in line we saw Ian Somerhalder make a run for the restroom.  It was actually pretty funny!  It was fun to meet Hayley.  Afterward I spent some time on the vendor floor checking out cosplays, booths, and slowly adding stuff to my photo scavenger hunt.  Because there are often a lot of people cosplaying for particular fandoms (Avengers, Lord of the Rings, etc), they created something called Cosplay Photo meetups.  I met up with a whole bunch of Star Wars people for a whole mess of pictures!

My new friend, Biker scout in a kilt!

I found Han Solo in carbonite.  He actually is a pretty awesome bit of wall decor!

My fellow Jedi and some other members of the Alliance.

This is from one of my very favorite scenes in the movies!  Chewbacca stealing an AT-ST on Endor.  There was a guy on stilts, and he'd occasionally pop Chewie out the hatch.

The 501st having a little photo op with the actor for C-3P0.

We had a fabulous time taking up the entire staircase getting pictures done.  Before we even knew what was happening a bunch of people started showing up for the Star Trek photo meet up.  All of a sudden we were having some crazy competition, and decided we needed a Star Wars versus Star Trek photo.  It was awesome!  Pretty soon we were trying to encourage people dressed as Wars characters to come join us, just so we could win.  It was awesome.

Some members of the Borg collective.

Trouble with tribbles!  At least he's not wearing a red shirt...

Star Wars versus Star Trek.  I'm somewhere in that mess of things.

The whole collection of us.  I'm right behind the lady in orange.

After this sweet meet-up I wandered around for a bit, then started queuing up to meet Ian Somerhalder.  Besides Chris Evans, this was one of the people I was most excited to meet!  Mock me if you must, but this guys is just plain dreamy.  Seriously, check out Vampire Diaries if you don't believe me.  He was also on Lost for a season or so before *spoiler* getting killed off.  I couldn't believe how stinkin' friendly he was!  He was putting his arms around everyone.  I also managed to tell him thanks for coming, and he promptly responded "thank you for having me!"  Honestly, what a nice guy.  Now I've officially met both my favorite men from Vampire Diaries.

Apparently my enthusiasm for Ian was shared by everyone else, because it took forever to get through the line for my photo op.  By the time I made it through the line, the con was shutting down, and the entire vendor floor was closed.  It was the first time I had stayed for the entire event.  What a ridiculously long, exhausting, exhilarating day!
Here's a few more pictures of random people I ran into, or pictures posted by people on Facebook.  Seriously, after the con you experience this kinda let-down of having to go back to real life.  That makes it a lot of fun to follow the ComicCon Facebook group and check out everyone's pictures.

I found some freakin' sharks with freakin' laser beams on their freakin' heads.  Hilarious!

Loki sitting on the Iron Throne.  That's pretty intense.

Deadpool is always very popular, especially this year it seemed.

A Jedi needs their accessories!  That's the symbol for the Rebel Alliance.

After driving home, I picked up some ridiculously unhealthy comfort food, and died on the couch.  It was pretty awesome!  I'm already looking forward to the next Con!