These Streets Will Make You Feel Brand New, Big Lights Will Inspire You

I spent every year of college betting against the Yankees. And every year, I lost that bet. This year, I bet on the Yankees, and now, barring an absurd turn of events, I have come out victorious. It was far too close than it should have been- Mets, Mariners, Rockies, I'm looking at you- but alas, the victory was secured in the Inaugural "Inaugural Rick Russell Knows More About Baseball Than I Do" competition. (It should be noted, there was an entry better then mine, but since he didn't feel the terms were fair, he was unwilling to turn over the dollar upon failure, and therefore negated his opportunity to receive the crisp Grant portrait. Sad news for him, lucky news for me.)
Even though the major awards haven't been announced yet, based on the point spread and likelihood of my opponent picking up those points, it's all over but the shouting. The only way for me to have defeat snatched out of the jaws of victory hinges on Chris Carpenter, Albert Pujols, Joba Chamberlain and Josh Hamilton. If three or more of them win their respective awards, I'll lose. Now, Pujols is a lock, and Carpenter has a good case, and I think Lincecum will take it, but those other two...no chance. None.
And even chalking up those point to Jared, I would still win by 3 points. I know. Far closer then anyone expected, but there you have it. This is what happens when you don't care about the NL. He gained 34 points, not including individual awards, in NL related categories. That's a whooping. Now I know how Randy Johnson feels when he has to step in the batter's box.
So to Jared, you kept in interesting, but alas, have fallen short. You'll be getting an email with the spreadsheet. Consider this a notice that I'm looking forward to your inscribed dollar bill.
Word.
PS-I now understand why Mike is a Yankees fan. It's great to cheer for the favorite, especially when they win. Regardless, White Sox till the casket drops.

I Will Buy You That Big House, Way Up In The West Hills

You want to know one of the best parts about moving somewhere? Having a whole slew of new facebook friend requests. Yes, it's petty and unbelievably superficial, but that's what makes it awesome. Go ahead, and tell me you aren't immediately intrigued and excited when you see that '1 new friend request', or better yet, the '2 new friend requests' icon at the top right corner. You are. We all are. We all like to know that people find us interesting and that people would actually like to get to know us. Of course, saying that sending out a friend request implies both or either of those is a stretch, but I don't care. I like to stroke the ego and take the opportunities that come to do so.

However, it does bring me to some of my more hypocritical moments. If you are my facebook friend, which I'm sure you must be because I have no clue how else you would even find this blog, then you know that the only things in the "Boxes" tab I have are lexulous, scramble and wordtwist. That's right. Three scrabble-esque, how many words do you know, games. And yes, I'm pretty good at all three. I still don't know how I lost that one game of lexulous, and truth be told, I think the other guy cheated (Sitterud beat me. Tell me he's not above using some website to come up with the best word possible from his tray. Go ahead. Don't mind my laughing. Continue.).

The point is, my profile beyond the interests tab, is about as blank as it can be. But I will tell you this. Whenever I get a new friend, the first thing I do is check out if they have bumper stickers and/or flair. I simply can't get enough of them. They kill me. And I have to look through all of them. Friend request from someone with 85 stickers and 75 pieces of flair at 12:45am? Guess I'm busy until 1:10 looking through them all. So what if I have a midterm tomorrow morning? I've got new stickers to look at! I'm busy here!

But you'll never see me put either of those up on my account. Ever. Mostly because I will likely add every single one that they have onto my profile. I would make an add-on that would simply stream the new ones onto my profile as soon as they were available. I would have them sent to my email and cell phone so I could see them as soon as they were hatched. And it would be an all-consuming activity for me. I simply can't afford it. It's the same reason I'm abstaining from reading the Harry Potter series. I know they're good. I simply don't want to sign off on a month or so of my life to knock the collection out. It might even be worth it, but I can't justify knowingly spending a month on a kid wizard.

Plus, it opens the door for the Twilight four-peat. I'll have none of that. Not now, not ever. I watched that first movie, and all I could think was, "Wow, this is some poor acting", "This seems horribly low budget" and "I'm so glad I'm never reading this". (It turns out that while the first and the last are subjective, the middle one is completely objective. The entire cost for the first film was about $37M, not including the sketchy marketing figures. To put that in perspective, 'The Devil Wears Prada' was $35M and 'Sweet Home Alabama" was $38M. And neither of those movies had special effects, and both had A-list actors and came off much more well done.)

So even though it is more than a tad bit hypocritical, I love the opportunity to see other people's favorite bumper stickers, but refuse to collect all of mine for others to enjoy. I just can't afford right now to start going down that road. There are too many time-dependent activities in my life that are marginally, if not substantially more important (e.g. med school). I'm sorry, but I just can't do it right now. Maybe in four years. Maybe.

Word.

I'm Gonna Muster Every Ounce Of Confidence I Have And Cannonball Into The Water

It's taken me about a month, but I've determined that a large part of being successful at medical school is realizing what not to learn, in addition to what you should learn. For example, right now, there is some guy showing us how to do a field test to check on cranial nerve damage. It's somewhat interesting, but mostly irrelevant at this juncture. We have studied the cranial nerves, and do need to know their purpose, however, we don't need to know how to verify functionality. Hence, I've taken the time to run this post up, especially considering it has been almost a month since last updating.

A lot has happened in the past month. We've already taken one mid-term and are getting ready for the second one in about a week and a half. I've dissected more muscles and structures than a lot people could handle hearing about before lunch. (You never look at a face the same way again after peeling the skin off, yanking the brain out, and then cutting the skull into quarters like and apple. Same with arms. I don't see forearms, I see a group of muscles and how they interact to flex the fingers.) I've learned that the church can function relatively normally, even when there are only active 30 members. I've dealt with not having vehicular transportation at my fingertips. And I've missed The Girlfriend dearly.

Beyond that, life has been great. I'm enjoying my time here (as much as you can while studying ridiculous amounts). Right now, I'm getting ready to sign a lease for the upcoming year. I found a place that is really safe, nice and new, and only a six minute walk away. Pretty ideal. However, I was talking with an agent and they said they had one for $300 less a month in an area called Point Pirouette. This area is beautiful as it is surrounded by the lagoon on three sides and a the golf course on the other. But it's that golf course that is a problem. Around here, that is the most dangerous place to be at night. In orientation meetings, we were told that the first, second and seventh rules about going to school here were to avoid the golf course at night.

So living there would be a big problem if I had to walk through there. However, it is only about a 100 yards by water between the tip of the area and the school. I was genuinely debating whether it would be worth it to get a canoe and row back and forth between class, or spending a little extra for a motor. You figure saving $300 a month should offset those costs quickly. And worse comes to worse, I can swim that distance in a matter of minutes. Sure, I would need to bring a change of clothes as well as my books in a water proof container, but $300 a month?
It was very tempting, but I just didn't want to have to deal with that hassle. So I'll go to the nicer
place down the road.

Also, ask me how excited I am about the new RW/RR challenge "The Ruins" that premiered on Wednesday? Tremendously. My love for these shows is well documented, and this season does not seem likely to disappoint. I do have a dilemma with this one. I've been an Evan fan ever since he and Coral were dominating Fresh Meat. I still am, but part of me, the part I don't like to talk about at parties, secretly enjoys watching Wes try to wrest control from him and the others. And the fact that Kenny stole his fiancee (or is it fiance? What's the rule on this?) adds a whole new layer of awesome to everything. I'm very excited to watch this.

Well, that was all over the place.

Word.

I Need You Like A Penny Needs A Wishing Well

In no particular order, here is a list of things that I have recently either found and love, or rediscovered and love:

1. Chocolate pudding cups. Wow. They're fantastic. Nothing cools you off after a long hot day like a couple chocolate pudding cups. Maybe it's a combination of the stroll down memory lane and the fantastic texture, all mixed with chocolotasticity, but it is fantastic. Easily the best purchase I made to start off the semester.

2. ESPN.com's fan passport. It's like a memory vault for every sporting event you've ever been to. You go in, find your MLB, NCAAF, NFL, whatever team, and then select the games you've been to, and it let's you jot a couple notes about it, and then rank the experience. Then it stores it for you so in case you ever need to pull it up (read journal, scrapbook, blackmail), it's there for you. Fantastic. I spent about 25 minutes making sure I had listed every baseball stadium I had been to, and every major sporting event I had attended. Some of the minor ones I left off, like I didn't list that I had gone to spring training games in the summer of 1993. But I definitely did. Many.

3. Skype. Ask me how much I pay to call all over the US as much as I want? $3. That's it. No joke. It's amazing. The hitch is that you have to be hooked up to the internet, but with wifi everywhere and a connection in my room, that's no problem at all. Need to ask the parents about travel arrangements? Done. Cougs just upset the #3 ranked team in the nation? Phone ringing off the hook. Issue with a credit card? Taken care of. From anywhere, to anywhere. $3. Beautiful.

4. Wearing a ball cap. Love it. I had gotten out of the habit of it for several reasons. I wouldn't wear it on days I had to work because I knew it would jack up my hair and I didn't want to re-do it. I didn't wear one on days where I had to act professional (ok, so that might be a stretch. More like on days that I had to interact with people and didn't want them to think I was an immature adolescent, and yes, this included trips to walmart), for much the same reason. And I rarely wore them on days when I was going to see The Girlfriend. I don't think that needs to be explained. However, here on my rock, other than class, there is no one I really need to impress. My classmates don't care anywhere near as much about fashion as people at BYU did (which I didn't really notice until I got here, but wow, Provo and Belmont in particular are ridiculously superficial. I fully believe that moving to Belmont ensured that I would graduate single.) so this Saturday I decided to go with my beloved Cal-State Fullerton cap. It felt like a slice of heaven, deep-fried and wrapped in bacon. Honestly, I think I'm going to make Saturday mandatory cap day and Sunday, after church, mandatory basketball shorts and T-shirt day. Done and done.

5. Boy Meets World. Cory, Topenga, Shawn, Eric, Feeny. I have seasons 4-7 on my laptop. It's like 100 episodes. Set for at least the semester. You want to bring a smile to my face, ask me about my deep and abiding love for Boy Meets World. Better yet, want to bring a bigger smile to my face, ask Mike about my deep and abiding love for Boy Meets World.

6. French Bread. It's what we use for the sacrament here. I know it doesn't change the ordinance, but it certainly is a little more incentive to get there on time.

7. The Oven. For years, (yes years) I had mocked Mike for using an oven for all of his heating demands. He'd put chicken nuggets in there instead of using the far more efficient microwave. It would blow my mind because I would already be half done with my meal by the time the oven had pre-heated. Give me convenience over quality was my motto. Lately, I've come to see his point. The taste comparison...isn't even a comparison. Made some chicken nugget parmigiana (go ahead, act like you couldn't see me doing this. My only question is, has anyone else ever heard of it? If not, I'm so calling it a new creation), and decided to use the oven. I figured if I had to wait for the noodles to boil, why not see how things turn out if use the oven. How, you ask? Fantastically. That's how they turned out. Now I'm hooked. I don't even have a baking sheet. I'm literally just laying aluminum foil on the rack and placing the meat on the foil. Clean up is a breeze and it tastes great. I'm sold.

Word

The Mate Was A Mighty Sailing Man, The Skipper Brave And Sure

For the first time in over a year, I find myself back in a lecture hall. But this is nothing like BYU. For starters, the class is substantially more... diverse than any class I had at the Y, and this school doesn't have an athletics program. But most notably, I'm only in class for 5.5 hours a day at the most. Some days it's only going to be 3.5. That's it. I can't remember ever having a semester where I averaged under 6 hours of class a day, and the only time I had less than four hours of class a day was when I set my schedule around the idea of every weekend being a three day weekend (which, for those of you still in school, I highly recommend. It's worth the time and trouble to look into the possibility of scheduling all your classes Monday through Thursday. It would be even more worth it if you could get a couple people together to do the same. That way you all have the same stellar three day weekend every weekend. Believe me when I tell you, there is no where you can't get to, enjoy, and get back from in three days.)

It does make for light days, but it also has led me to study for more hours than I care to account for. It's not too bad, but I can easily see why some of the 4th or 5th semesters are just counting down the weeks.

Then again, we do live on a tropical island. A tiny, tropical island, but a tropical island nonetheless. How tiny you ask? This tiny:

Just the blob, not the whole square, represents the to scale size of the island. Amazingly tiny compared to anything else. But I'll take it.

Word.

Try Restaurants I've Never Been To, Order New Things Off The Menu

So, I drove all the way from the west coast of my island to the east. Guess how long it took? 45 minutes. With traffic that seemed about as heavy as the roads could handle. I could loop the whole thing in about 1:30 I think. And that's not even in more car. In my car, I could run around the compass in an hour.

Which brings me to the main point I wanted to address. I really miss my car. No, like really miss it. (Not as much as I miss The Girlfriend, but almost.) Everytime I look around here I try to gauge how long it would take to get there and I always figure it out as though I was driving. Well, I'm not going to be driving, especially not my car. Bamboo shunt pain. I have spent my life driving at all possible opportunities. Need to go to the corner to get milk? Driving. Need to move a roommate across the apartment complex? Trunk is open. Need to pay for gas after filling up? I'm pulling into the parking spots near the door. (Yes, I have really done that. More than once.)

Now, it's all pedestrain means for me. I might even buckle and buy a bicycle. I have not rode a bike since the mission, and have vowed never to again. But, when church is an hour walk away, that's not really an option. I don't walk an hour for anything. I think the last time I walked for an hour was on the mission. And then I hated walking because I knew there were a host of better options.

So yeah, I really miss my car. Like really.

Word.

Everytime I Do It Makes Me Laugh

Ok so I have to run a photo dump for the past couple weeks. I really don't think a lot of them need a lot of explanation, but here we go. Also, they're pretty much in reverse chronological order. Sorry, but not flipping them. But to give you a recap of where they were taken, in Photo order, I belive it is Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Boston, Baltimore, DC, and Philly. And that, along with 90+ hours spent driving around in my car, has been my August. Not kidding.

Word.