I apologize for the delay in my post yesterday. I will explain the reason for the delay in today's post.

Yesterday was August's Seven Peaks Employee party. We went to a place called Jump On It. It's essentially a building with tons of trampolines all connected. There are even trampolines at an angle on the walls. This link will take you to their home page. Click "See Inside" to get a short video shot of the inside.

http://www.jumponitparty.com/

So, I jumped on trampolines almost non-stop for about 2 hours. Apparently, maybe because I've had so many concussions, it was too much for my head. After I had been done jumping for awhile, my vision got black around the edges and very blurry. That lasted for a good 20 minutes or so. My body then kind of went into a numb-like state. Not totally numb where I couldn't move, but numb and tingly-like and I couldn't concentrate well. After a while, those cleared up, but a headache came on. It started small but grew quite quickly. I was supposed to help my manager move his furniture after the party. By the time we got to his apartment, my head was pounding , particularly in the front, and I was sensitive to light and sound. Luckily he had someone else to help move furniture, because after moving 1 piece I felt like I was going to either puke or pass out. At that point, I would have loved to have passed out and woken up a day later feeling fine. He took me home on his way to drop his furniture off where it was going. By then I felt like I had a fever and was really hot and I was in so much pain I could barely think or talk. I literally walked through the door, emptied my pockets, changed into some light shorts and hopped into bed. I will spare you another detail involving another ill symptom. I'll just say that I had to go to the bathroom twice, I had to sit, and it wasn't puke. If you get my drift. (If you don't get my drift, that's ok, don't think about it too much). I got up 3 times in the night. The first two trips were to the bathroom, the 3rd was to get a cold, damp towel to drape over my throbbing forehead. The towel helped. I was boiling hot and freezing cold at the same time. With my shirt off at this point, the towel gave me a good balance. I was under the covers to keep my chilled skin warm, but the towel kept my hot head cool. After enduring a lot of restlessness due solely to the extreme feeling of my head wanting to explode, I eventually fell asleep. There was someone next door or below me vacuuming and cleaning loudly (it was past 1 AM at this point), but the headache/migraine kept me from being bothered by it and it did not keep me from finally sleeping.

When I awoke this morning, the throbbing pain had ceased. Unfortunately, I did still feel pain in my head. Any time I tilt my head downwards, it throbs. Every sneeze throbs. Shaking my head too much throbs. Basically, I've spent the day trying not to move my head any which direction. I feel like I received a concussion, but I never hit my head. The only reason I did not puke all over the world last night is because for the past 3 years or more since the last time I puked (which I think was the time I came home to Kentucky and was sick the whole way back), I vowed to not puke again. Despite a few times where my body wanted to make me puke and all I had to do was say "ahh", I have gotten good at making myself not puke. Anyway, all the symptoms of a head injury were there except for an actual impact to cause one. I'm led to believe that my brain got all jumbled from the jumping and the physical activity. It's actually not new to me. When I played soccer on an intramural team two years ago, any time I went all out running and exerting myself, my vision would get black around the edges and I'd feel similar symptoms to last night. Maybe I should talk to my doctor about it and make sure I don't have any real problems.

Anyway, I spent the entire day cleaning today. I did both my and Mike's cleaning checks. I started around 8:30 or so and I'm actually still not complete and it's almost 6:00 pm. I took a short break to close my Deseret First Credit Union account. The only Provo location, which is 2 blocks down, is closing, so there's no point having an account at a bank I can't get to. I withdrew the $25 in my savings which is all I had in there. The cleaning checker offer guy came and since I did Mike's first and I'm staying in this apartment in Fall and have been cleaning all day, he passed us both off.

I know this post is long, but I have 2 more things to tell. First, that kid I fired. I completely forgot to mention that his father called us 45 minutes after we fired him. His father actually thanked us for holding to our values and doing what was right and had to be done. He was thankful for that and he was glad that his son was going to be able to learn from this earlier in his life rather than later. The next day, which was Wednesday, he brought his son in and his son had a card for us. In it he apologized for his actions and expressed regret for letting down his manager, supervisors and co-workers. He also included money to pay us back for what he stole and he put in extra to make sure he was "honest in his restitution". I was impressed his father handled it so professionally and while I'm sure he nudged his son a lot to do it, it took courage for his son to do that too.

I will end on a funny note. At work yesterday, I broke a chair I was sitting in. I was just sitting in a white, four legged plastic chair and out of nowhere the back 2 legs snapped at the top. I fell straight down and back a little with what was, according to the co-worker that witnessed it, the funniest face ever. As I went to throw the chair away, people saw and I got the whole fat person treatment. That's ok. I know that none of my 7 and a half abs were the least bit offended and neither was I. It was, after all, a rare treat to be the skinniest guy ever to break a chair from just sitting in it.

The deed is done. This morning, a few minutes after 9:00 AM Mountain Daylight Time, I fired an employee for the first time in my life. Despite preparing myself since yesterday for it, there's just no way to be prepared for that. I was probably almost as nervous as the guy I was firing was. I kept it pretty brief. It was all over within a couple minutes. We discussed the things he had done and he told me exactly how many times he did those things. Then I told him that because of the repeated offenses, we had decided to let him go. He knew it was coming. No matter how much he wanted to avoid it (and he had been for the past couple days since he was caught doing what led to him being fired), he knew it was a reality. Within 24 hours he would need to turn in his uniform and badge and could not swim at the park unless he pays. I asked him if he had any other questions and he declined. He stood, shook my hand and as he turned for the door I told him I was sorry it had to end this way. He acknowledged the situation and before leaving said that he knew it was his own fault. After he left, I filled out a separation notice with HR to make it all final. He no longer works for Seven Peaks Water Park.

After that, the Foods Manager and I had some breakfast at work and the day went on from there. I now have experience hiring and firing employees.

This evening, after work, I went down the street to the annual BYU Cougar Kick Off. They have all the fall sports teams (Football, Women's Soccer, Women's Volleyball, Men's and Women's Basketball and some track people) at the soccer practice field. Lots of sponsors are there with booths giving away small swag and they talk to the head coaches of the sports and a few players. Bronco Mendenhall, as usual, was the highlight of the evening. I got signed posters from the women's soccer and volleyball team. I got a football poster but didn't want it signed (long lines mostly deterred me from it). I also got a KSL frisbee and some BYU bumper stickers. It was a fun event to go hang out at for a bit. I got to see one of the veteran football wide receivers dance on stage and do a back flip off of the stage. I'm sure if Bronco was still there, he would have cringed seeing a player back flipping. Now I'm home trying to get a head start on my cleaning. I have to do both my and Mike's cleaning checks on Thursday and somehow I have to make it look like 4 people's things are all my own, while hiding my illegal items as well. Yay!

Hello, hello and happy Monday. I'm not sure about all of you, but, my Monday was quite good. No real problems. Work went smooth. I stayed an extra 2 and a half hours for no particular reason. I still worked and everything so I wasn't wasting time or anything.

The only downfall to today was the decision to fire an employee. I won't give too many details, but, this employee has a history of getting free food when he should not and lying about it a lot. It added up to too many problems and so I decided we should just let him go. Since I was the supervisor who confronted him in the past about these problems, I am going to be the one to talk to him tomorrow morning and inform him of our decision. The foods manager hates firing people, so, since I have never done it before and I want experience with that, I will be doing it alone. I'm a little bit nervous and anxious, but I think it will all go smoothly. I'm pretty certain he knows that we're onto him about it, so he should just accept it.

Anyway, that will be the highlight of tomorrows post. I'll tell you all how it went.

Today went pretty good. I'll keep it somewhat brief.

Church was excellent. I met with my bishop again and we went over what the mission interview is like so I can be somewhat prepared for it next week when I meet with him again to be interviewed. By then, he will know more about service missions and we'll decide if that's what's going to happen. Keep in mind that I can do a service mission and then a full time proselyting mission too. I know most people say service mission with a bit of hesitation, but, I feel that whether that's the only mission I do or if it is a pre-cursor to a full time mission, it's what I should do right now. There are some service missions that are somewhat full time where I would be working 40 hours a week. Anyway, once we know more about what's available and such maybe any questions people have can be answered.

The sacrament meeting talks were the best we've had in ages. A different high councilor that's spoken to us before spoke with his wife. Both of their talks were amazing and I've never seen a congregation more attentive. I took a lot away from church today.

After church, Annie, who came down this morning and went to church with me, hung out at my place. We had some dinner and watched a movie. That was about it today. This week will be work as usual. Though I will be taking a day off to get my cleaning check done and get some important errands run. I have to register my bike, close a bank account, do all mine and mike's cleaning, get some milk and eggs and maybe a couple other things and who knows what else...all on Thursday, and most of those have a strict time limit and have to be done before certain times that day. OH BOY!

Today I have an interesting story to tell. I'll get to that in a bit. But first, as the big picture to the left shows, I got a haircut today! I decided to swing by the BYU Barbershop before work. I'm pleased with the result. I usually don't style it, so it will look a little different than the picture. (The picture was taken minutes ago from my webcam.)

Anyway, work was good. It was a little busy but we all worked through it and had a fun Saturday. My story begins when work ends. As I sent my employees home for the night, I realized that my decision to take the bus today was a bad idea because buses don't run past 6 or 7 on Saturday nights. I walked to get my hair cut and took a bus from campus to work because my knee (the one I banged up yesterday) wasn't really up for riding a bike again yet. A quick note on that, the tip of the bone is bruised a bit so while I can walk fine, kneeling or putting any more strain on it than walking hurts a lot. Anyway, so I took a bus to work today and then realized later there was no bus home when I got off. It being an absolutely beautiful night, I had no problem walking. Now, when I walk places, it gives me time to think. Sometimes I think about important things, sometimes I just let my mind wander. Today, I began to let my mind wander. As I approached a tree that hangs over the sidewalk, I heard a light rustling of the leaves. My mind being in wander mode, as I walked under the rustling branches, I wondered what would happen if a ginormous snake tried to swallow me as it swung down from the tree. I came to the conclusion that I would manage to escape the snake. Having quite the tale to tell, that would probably land me on some tv shows. I wouldn't really care to be on any show except for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. But, I wouldn't want to just recite my story. I would want to be asked questions about myself too. In my head I continued to entertain the thought of being interviewed by Jay Leno. I figured the most interesting thing about me to him would be that I'm Mormon. I continued to think about the questions I would be asked and somehow that led me to being asked about immigration. I think that illegal immigration is just that. Illegal. A process has been drawn up through which people can become legal citizens. Regardless of what "experts" say, illegal immigrants, even if they are productive and good, burden our governments. My mind kept linking that to other things and somehow that got me to relating it to marriage. It's something that has been established and you don't just want to alter that suddenly. Though, in this day and age, people want to alter marriage as well. Marriage is something that can only be between man and a woman. Despite this having been established for centuries, people have become confused and want to alter that. All these things I was thinking about, I realized that all they do is bring about confusion. The only thing they accomplish is tearing down the unity of people. This entire nation could be torn apart by the differing views, which come from Satan, on things like illegal immigration and gay marriage. Even if you don't believe in God, you can easily see how evil has penetrated the roots of society. After thinking all these things, I have to believe that those things are there for one purpose, to break apart the unity of countries, churches and even friendships and families. I know it's totally weird that walking under a tree could lead me to this, but, it did and I have no doubt that that's exactly what is happening, especially because I just finished reading in the Book of Mormon about what happened to the Nephites and Lamenites who were constantly destroyed for allowing similar things to permeate their societies.

Well, that's my story. I hope it made sense. Hopefully the comments are working now, because I'm sure anyone who reads this will have some comment to make. For the record, you don't need to comment that I'm weird. I already know that!

Tomorrow I meet with my bishop and will hopefully come away with a decision on what's going on this fall for me. Hope you all have a good weekend! Summer is almost over.

Ok, let me just say, watching a scary movie while you're living alone is not the best idea. I have even seen the movie I watched before and I watched it during the evening before the sun set. I still just about peed myself twice. The movie is "When a Stranger Calls". That movie, if you haven't seen it, is one that really scares you because it isn't a slasher, gory, non-realistic movie. It's as real as they come. Here's the synopsis: "During an otherwise routine babysitting gig, a high-school student is harassed by an increasingly threatening prank caller." Yeah...a girl alone being stalked. So, when you watch this one alone it scares you even more. It usually takes me a day or two to get over watching this one. I'm writing this from next to my subwoofer and the air blew at me and made me jump. I keep looking over my back. I had to turn on all the lights and open the front door. Funny thing is, before I even turned the movie on I knew I would regret it big time. I was so right. I'm paranoid now! I purposefully watched it during the evening when the sun was up so that 1) I wouldn't pee myself and 2) I could watch some comedy movies after. I guess I had a good Friday the 13th experience now.

Speaking of Friday the 13th experiences, there were a few at work. First, I kept bumping my elbows and knees and arms and legs and hands and fingers and entire body into objects that haven't moved all year. One kind of eerie thing did happen too. They announce on the radios we use the hourly gate count so we know how many people to expect. Well, today during one hour there were 666 people that entered in an hour. I was like...really? On Friday the 13th of all days? If I was giving the gate count, I would have added a person or two. Anyway, on my home from work I was standing up on my bike and changed gears, which isn't a good idea, but, I wasn't thinking and the gear shifting jolted the bike a bit and my foot that was on the peddle went down and my knee just slammed into not just the rock hard frame, but there happened to be a little bolt or something that would hurt more if you were to hit it...and of course I did. My knee is currently swollen quite a bit, right above the left knee cap, on the inner side. Quite painful.

In other news, all of my roommates are out and I am alone until the 25th. It's kind of exciting, but kind of lonesome too. I'll be working most of the time, but I will be home every night which could get boring. I was sitting on my couch last night when I realized I'm alone, so I thought, what do bachelors do when they're living alone? Five minutes later I ordered a Papa Johns special. Extra Large 3 topping pizza for only $12.00! I even paid a buck twenty-five (the store is 2 blocks away) to have it delivered and gave a $2 tip. I felt like the typical man. Thankfully, I'm not the typical man, so I'll be making my own pizza next time.

Only one more week of full days at work! Starting the 23rd we go to half days. Based on my interview with my bishop Sunday, I'll determine whether to look for a full time job or part time job or whatever for when this one ends. I'm pretty excited to be done with Seven Peaks. It has been a great job, but I'm ready for something else now. Wow, this post has gone on pretty long today. Lots to talk about...it also helps that I'm trying to calm down from that scary movie before I watch something else. Anywho, I'll leave it at that for today. Bon voyage!

So I said I wasn't going to get to see Mary and I didn't really think I would either, but, I did! Last night, she was kind enough to stay up a little late to come over for a bit. I went on my bike and picked her up. She borrowed a bike from her brother in-law and sister and we biked to my place. We talked and laughed and listened to some tunes for about an hour before she had to go. We biked part way and then walked the rest so we could talk some more. It was really nice to see her and it really made my week. She'll be busy with her sister's graduation and moving her sister and brother in law to Salt Lake, so, no more Mary until she moves back here in a couple more weeks.

That is really all that's worth telling today. The food stand I was running was really slow business, so, since we were all really tired today, we closed it early. Tomorrow is Friday the 13th. I don't think I'll watch any scary movies. I'll watch a comedy instead.

I do have updates on something I talked about awhile ago. When I complained to the management about the bathroom mildew, they came that week and put mildew/mold inhibitor on the walls and painted them all over. The bathroom looks really good now and when you clean it, it doesn't feel dirty anymore. I kept meaning to put that on here, but kept forgetting.

I was scheduled from 9-5 today. I ended up working 9-8! More hours!! We had an exclusive scheduled for ancestry.com. They were bringing 1200 people and they were getting meals. Instead of the regular burger or hot dog, they had the choice of hamburger, hot dog, chicken sandwich (which cook from raw and take 5-7 minutes to cook usually), pb&j, veggie burger or chicken nuggets. Having run into long lines with groups before, we were prepared for it this time. We had a couple hundred burgers cooking and in the warmer with a couple hundred chicken sandwiches going as well. This way, when they came to get food, bam, bam ,bam, they were through. Well, usually it takes a half hour to an hour before people come and get their food. Today, people came through the gate and got in line before even putting their towels and stuff down. Thank goodness we were prepared. The lines shot back instantly at both stands, but with every window open taking food vouchers and having drinks and burger buns ready on plates, the lines went quick. Though startled at first, we did very good. I was on the grill from 5-7:30 grilling up chicken and burgers. All in all, it went well. We eventually ran out of our stocked up grill food, but we kept grilling so quick no one had to wait long for anything.

Inception last night was great. Lots of people said you have to watch it a couple times before you understand it, but, we all understood it. Maybe because they said that we were more focused on it. Either way, it was a very intriguing movie and I'm sure it's going to win some awards when award season comes around. It was cool to get in free too. We felt so special being ushered past the ticket taking booth...even though it was a Tuesday night and no one was around to gawk at us.

Not much going on besides work the rest of the week. I'll look for any fun things to do, but, it is Provo and it is the end of summer.

As you may have noticed, I changed the background of my blog. I searched over 50 pages of background templates before I found the one I thought looked best. The only complaint I have is that the picture isn't centered. If I was any good at HTML editing, I'm sure I can fix that, but, I'm not. Commenting should now be easy. Just click the button below the post and it should take you to a form to comment from. I think I'm going to put together a picture slide show to go beneath my picture. We'll see how long it takes me to do that. I'll probably forget. One change I made was I made it show fewer posts on the main page. You can still access any post from the archive on the left, but I thought it would be better to have only 10 posts on the page.

That's really the biggest thing that happened today. I worked 10-7 and then came home. I am going to the movie Inception in half an hour. One of our food employees has worked at one of the local movie theaters for 3 years now and so her manager lets her "sneak" in people from time to time. Tonight, the foods manager and the supervisors are going to a movie for free! I've never been "snuck" in before, so that will be cool. I feel like a VIP. Mary is coming into town with her parents for her sister's graduation tomorrow, but they'll be really busy moving her sister and attending graduation stuff so I won't get to see her.

As you may have noticed, today is 8-9-10. I thought that was pretty cool.

Anyway, today was a normal day. Very few people at Seven Peaks, so not much went on there. Annie stayed over last night so she and Mike packed up all his stuff and moved it to a friends house to store. They did that while I worked and then after work we all went to Wal-Mart. All the things I needed (bike reflectors, a bike light and a helmet) they were out of. Well, they had a helmet but I haven't decided which style is safest, so I didn't get one yet. I'm just going to go to the bike shop and get all the things I need later this week.

I did make one purchase today. It was not an essential purchase and to be honest, it was a little bit frivolous. I bought some speakers. The speakers I used to have, the ones the dog chewed, finally died awhile back. When I got those I sold the other ones I had because I needed the cash more than 2 pairs of speakers. Since the ones died, I've just been using my tv for music and movie sound. But, my tv speakers are kind of lame, so, since I'm working 105 hours in a paycheck and have not bought myself hardly anything this year, I decided this would be my little splurge. I promise it won't happen anymore. I'm doing fine with my old clothes and my old shoes. I did tell Mike though to look for a suit for me in Korea. If he can find a cheap one ($50 or less) I'll get one. I also told him if he finds some good, cheap (under $20) shoes (which apparently they have good shoes sometimes for dirt cheap), I'll get some too. Ultimately I do not expect to get much from Korea, but, if a super cheap thing comes along that I need, I'll probably have him get it for me since it's WAY cheaper than here.

Besides work, I don't have much planned for the next two weeks. I'm working every day this week and also every day next week. I just want to rack up hours and increase my bank account. The next day off I have planned is August 27th and 28th, when we are hopefully going to Wyoming.

I found a Muppet video I wanted to share. I thought it was hilarious:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvDvTnTGjgQ

Well, I did it. This morning I successfully finished reading the Book of Mormon, cover to cover. I have to say that the replica version made it easier to read and follow, but it was my true desire to read it that helped me read it so intently. I recommend the replica version to anyone who wants to re-read the Book of Mormon cover to cover. The new version, with all the verses and such, is irreplaceable for studying, but the replica version is really great, even with all it's typos and 1800s-looking page mis-alignments and such. Not to mention it looks cool.

Now that I've read the Book of Mormon, I think I'm going to read the Doctrine and Covenants and brush up on my church history. I'll also study preach my gospel and the other standard works.

Today turned out to be a great day. It started with finishing the Book of Mormon, then church was great as well. The lessons were good and the talks in sacrament meeting were also very good. Mike and I were asked to bless the sacrament, and that was really good too. At the end of the day, having been just home taught as well, my joy is almost full. I say almost because I haven't had a super good meal yet. Once I have that, then I think my joy will be full.

I have another meeting scheduled for next Sunday with the bishop. I need to renew my temple recommend and also decide what is going to happen with a mission. My goal is to have the next step in life planned out more by the end of next Sunday. Whether that be school this fall, a service mission, a proselyting mission, a ward mission, or whatever.

Let me just first say, Hallelujah! After a grueling week of 57.5 hours of work which included mostly 10+ hour days, I now get to enjoy one day off before going back in every day next week again. I went in at 6:00 AM to help make food for the 1st Annual Seven Peaks Lifeguard Competition. The event went well and it will hopefully grow every year. After the event I had my 9-5 shift and I have to be honest, I didn't get much done today. I was flat out exhausted. I guess I still accomplished lots today, but I directed employees more than physically assisted them. Anyway, once the closing supervisor got in today, I finished up what I was doing and left early at about 4. I had a nice, short power nap when I got home and then I've been just relaxing all night.

I tried to change my blog background but couldn't find a suitable replacement. Though it seems that changing it and then changing it back fixed the comment problem. You should be able to leave comments now.

Though I'm only 50 pages away from finishing the Book of Mormon, I knew that even trying to read today would have profited me nothing. My mind was just too tired to be able to get more than 2 pages done in a half hour. I plan on finishing it up in the morning. I'm very excited to finish it. Being able to read and understand everything and remember it all has really made a difference.

Whew...the past two days have been pretty busy. Thursday I was working until late and then had to get to bed quick because I had to be at Seven Peaks at 7:15 this morning to help with employee olympics.

I'll recap Thursday first. Thursday was a super slow day for Seven Peaks. The park was closing at 3:30 for an exclusive event, so not many people planned one coming. Add to that some morning thunderstorms and rain and there were only 300 people that came to swim until the exclusive began. The exclusive was a pretty cool thing. There is a very popular and respected orthodontist in this area that has 3 brothers who are also well respected and popular orthodontists. They do yearly parties and this year they rented out Seven Peaks for it. Between the 4 dentist and 1 other dentist with a different last name (but might be related still), they had 4,000 people come to Seven Peaks. From what I hear, they invited all of their patients and the patients' immediate family. That's about 800 people per dentist office. I was impressed that so many people were there. Several of my employees attended because they too go to one of the family orthodontists.

Today was a good day. It started off with the Seven Peaks Employee Olympics. I didn't really want to compete, so I helped a bit with setting up and judging. It was a lot of fun to watch people doing the different events (stuff like a tube carry, dippin' dots eating contest and other fun water-park things). We also got free breakfast and a t-shirt we were allowed to wear today. After the olympics ended at 11 am, I sat out in the sun with my shirt off to get some Vitamin D and some tanning. I pulled out my Book of Mormon and finished up Mormon. I'm now 50 pages from finishing, with only Ether and Moroni to go. I expect I'll finish Sunday morning. After that I put my swim suit on and soaked under the hot showers there and then went to work. The park closed to the public at 7:30 for a short exclusive with a company called Klune Industries. Dad may have heard of them. They are an aerospace company that do contract work for the government. Anyway, they were a smaller group of around 400, so it wasn't too bad. We finished that up at 9:00 and got ready for the pool party (basically a big high school dance party). Once that was under control, I left around 10:06. In all, I spent 15 hours at Seven Peaks today. Just over 9 of those I was paid for. As of now, I have close to 48 hours. Tomorrow I'm going in at 6 am (paid this time) to help cook food for a charity lifeguard competition. If I get the 11 hours I'm scheduled for tomorrow, I will end this week with 59 hours! Next week I'm working every day as well, so my next paycheck will easily have 100+ hours on it! That'll net me about $850. So, things are going pretty well! I got a paycheck today for $534. I'll finish off my debts I think and then be seeing pure profit for once in my bank account.

Well, it's 11 pm and I have to be at work in 7 hours, so I should go get some shut eye. I'm going to re-design my blog soon and see if I can get comments to work. I'll play around with a few templates and see how they look.

Remember how busy I said it was at Seven Peaks yesterday? Well, we were even busier today. It was so jam packed at the food stands I can not even describe it. Trying to take food to other stands you had to weave in and out of 4 or 5 different lines. It was absolute insanity! We had a few more employees to help today and even pulled some managers from different areas to help on the grills. All in all, I'm very proud of how my employees handled it. We had thousands more people from Intermountain Health there along with a couple hundred BYU Sports and BYU Dance camps who also had meal vouchers this week. The weather kept us busy through the end of the day. We had lightning a couple times and when that happens they have to close the attractions until 30 minutes after the last lightning strike. During that time, food stands generally get longer. As if that was possible today. Anyway, storms came and went today until about 5 pm when some storms rolled in and lingered, eventually causing the park to close at around 6:15-6:30ish. With a couple of 5 minute downpours, everyone who hadn't eaten had left the park. Most of who remained were BYU people and IHC people waiting for food. Once they were helped, the park closed due to weather so we didn't have to worry about any more lines. I still managed to get most of my hours today. With what seemed like hundreds of chip boxes (we ran completely out of chips for a bit today and had to make a run to Costco to buy 600 to keep us afloat), burger boxes, fry boxes, condiment packet boxes and all sorts of other boxes and messes around, we had a good hour and a half of cleaning to do. After that, I stayed for a half hour more to finish up and get paperwork done. I left 1 hour short of my schedule, so I'm still going to hopefully have a big paycheck.

After work, I went home and just chillaxed. Watched a movie with Mike, ate some candy, made a smoothie, talked to a friend who got back today from his mission. The rest of the week will be pretty busy at work and I'm ready for it. There are lots of exclusives going on and plenty of groups to go before the end of the season.

I work the afternoon shift tomorrow, so I'll get a lot of reading done in the morning. Hopefully get done with 3rd Nephi by tomorrow. Getting really close to finishing!

Today was just an insane day. We had close to 3000 people in the park from one group in addition to regular patrons. All 3000 had a meal voucher. Basically, between noon and 8 pm when we closed, we had huge lines. At the busiest point, at both of our stands, we had as many as 200 people waiting to get their food. It was just madness. We did all we could to keep customers happy and move the lines quick, but there were still a couple people who complained. The same company (Intermountain Health Care) is supposed to bring 3000 more people tomorrow for the same deal. We're trying to bring in 8 extra employees to help deal with the masses. We also had to make 2 emergency food orders because even though we got an order in today, we were wiped clean of hamburgers, hamburger buns and a whole bunch of other stuff. Due to the lines and the need to order more food and try to schedule more people, I stayed 3 hours after my shift had ended. In two days I'm already at 19.5 hours this week. Tomorrow, I have a 12 hours shift and Saturday I am coming in 3 hours early for an event. By Saturday night, I should have around 59-60 hours this week! Ka-ching!

I finished up Helaman and I'll try to get some reading in before or after work these next few days. Should still be easily done with the entire Book of Mormon on Sunday.

I bought my sports pass today. I should be able to use it quite a bit before I get called on a mission. Then if I leave, I'll sell it or give it away. Speaking of sports, pretty much every important person involved with BYU Athletics is at Seven Peaks tonight. The owner of Seven Peaks wanted Legacy status as a donor, which costs thousands of dollars. To get that, he invited the BYU football team and coaches and practically everyone involved with BYU athletics to an exclusive night. So, rather than pay cash, he does a big event like that as his donation. I saw coach Bronco Mendenhall there with his kids and lots of people who I'm sure were important but I had no clue who they were. It was pretty neat.

Today I finished up Alma and am moving into Helaman. My goal is to finish Helaman up tonight or tomorrow, depending on my level of tiredness, and then I think I can be completely finished with the Book of Mormon by Sunday. At that point, I'll probably read through and study Preach My Gospel.

It being August, things will start to get fun again. The big Cougar Kickoff where you get to meet all the fall sports teams and enter for prizes and get free stuff is coming up in about 2 weeks and from there Women's Soccer begins some pre-season and then we dive right into lots of sporting events and other fun stuff. Should be exciting.

Happy Birthday Michael!

Today turned out to be one the best days in a long time. I got up this morning and read a bunch in Alma, then headed over to my interview with the bishop. The bishop is actually new, having been called as bishop barely a month ago, but he's been in the bishopric for a good 6 months to a year or so. Anyway, we talked about me and my family and my life and my job and all that so he could get to know me better and then we talked about a mission and what I've talked to the old bishop and the stake president about with that. Since he is new and has never done this before, he is going to find out this week everything he needs to know about mission papers and also service missions and then we'll go from there. I feel really good about it all and I look forward to meeting with him again soon.

After some good lessons and sacrament meeting, I went with my home teaching companion (who is from New Zealand and who is also a good friend that I sit with during church...ask Mike about him) and got all of our home teaching done for this month. With that having taken a good hour and 15 minutes and it being around 5:30, we were pretty hungry. So, since I made Phillip (that's his name, by the way) shrimp scampi with mike and annie last week, I went to his apartment two doors down for a chicken salad tonight. It was dang good. It was really great to have a huge heaping plate of iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, avocado and marinated cooked chicken topped with greek dressing. It was even better that I didn't have to do much of the cooking at all. After that amazing fast-breaking meal, we had a bunch of strawberries and other food the rest of the night while just hanging out, relaxing in front the tv. While I did not accomplish my goal today of finishing Alma (I'm 30 pages away), I did have a much needed break from life and work, and since I did read for hours this morning, I'm ok with finishing Alma tomorrow. My mind and body needed that reboot.

Anyway, this week is going to be a beast! I'm working Monday through Saturday, covering for 2 supervisors who will be gone for different parts of the week. If I work all the hours I'm supposed to, I'll have about 51 hours! Though I don't get overtime pay, combine that with what should be a 40 hour week next week and my next paycheck should be somewhere around $700. With the bank paid off, I'll eliminate the rest of my debt, pay my rent and, with what's still in my account now, have a good $500 or more in the bank. If you include the $1000 I should get from the firework tent and the rest that will accumulate from Seven Peaks and my bonus, I could have as much as $1500 to $2000 in my bank account in September.

PS- If you guys ever want to comment on my posts, all you have to do is click the title of the post, which will take you to a page that isolates that post and has a "Post a Comment" link at the bottom. Remember, you do not have to be a registered user to comment!

Here I am at the end of yet another summer week. A small handful of weeks more and this summer will be over. I can't say I'm really sad about that though. In a college town when you have a summer job, there really aren't many things to do. Most of the people you know are on vacation and while there are lots of fun holidays and such, in my case I worked through them all. I'm not complaining or anything, but, as the summer ends I realize how much my body and mind really need a reboot. I'm hoping that happens in Wyoming on the 27th and 29th. I'm not sure how Wyoming is going to go, but I am going to do all I can to make it a really fun time.

I commuted to work on my bike for the first time today. It was a good experience. I have a little more flexibility now because I do not have to run on the buses schedule. That really makes me happy. It takes me between 10 and 15 minutes to ride to seven peaks, depending on my rate of speed and traffic lights. If I want to go leisurely, I leave a little early. If I'm late, I can just peddle faster and be there in under 10. It is also good exercise for me. I haven't been going to the gym as often as I should and I've really felt that in my physical health. Before I would be tired at the end of the week, but it would be a good tired where a day off Sunday would re-energize me and I would get back to it. Now, by mid-week I'm flat out exhausted and there's little that can re-energize me. I'll try going to the gym more. Even if I don't lift weights and bulk up, I need to at least go and get my blood flowing, get my body working.

More important news than the above, I am now more than halfway through the Book of Mormon. Today I read the story of Ammon and Lamoni, which is probably one of the best stories. Lots of people falling to the ground. It really is amazing.

Tomorrow is my real meeting with my bishop about a mission. It works out that the meeting was postponed last week because this week is Fast Sunday, so I think that will help me. I honestly have no idea what's going to happen and where our discussion will go, but I'm ready for it.

That's the news for today. If he reads this, it'll be on his birthday, so Happy Birthday Michael! The good thing about your birthday on Fast Sunday is you get a bigger dinner you'll enjoy more!

Happy Friday! Work was insanely busy today for some reason. The park wasn't very busy, but lots of people wanted food and they all came to my stand today. It was a shaky start because some employees were at the wrong stands and 2 were home sick, but in the end we made it through. I do have to say that some of my employees really make my job worth it. There are lots of hot days where I'm exhausted or stressed or something outside of work is on my mind and those days just suck, but there's always some employee who either really works hard and makes my job so much easier that day or an employee that's funny that helps me break through that stress barrier. I'm very grateful for my employees. They've made my summer more enjoyable.

Well, after a good long search that had me on the very brink of buying a brand new mountain bike (which I still really want), I finally found a good quality used bike for $125. It was sold to me by a guy who runs a bike repair business. I took it on a test ride and saw no real reason to pass on the deal. I am now the proud owner of an aqua marine Scott Mountain Bike. I chose a mountain bike over a road bike (the ones with skinny wheels) because I am in Utah and I'm literally only seconds away from lots of good bike trails. Since I'm not commuting 20 miles to work (which apparently is a popular thing to do with road bikes), a mountain bike works great for getting to work and back. Now I just need to find some people who also have bikes who can go try out some trails with me!

I went and looked at the bikes I'm looking into and after talking to the bike shop manager decided on the one that would be best. I'm still deciding whether or not I should get it. I've spent the last month looking for a good used bike, but half the postings never return emails and the other half are either too expensive, are girl bikes, or are would require replacement parts and tune ups. Since the bike I'm looking at would last for years, I may just invest in it now and keep it for as long as it works.

That's about all that was worth mentioning today. Work was slow and monotonous. Looking forward to Wyoming next month.

This week is really flying by. At work today I was thinking it was only Tuesday when someone said it was Wednesday and I just thought, wow, time goes by so quickly.

Today I worked a 12 hour shift to cover for a supervisor who had something to be at tonight. I don't really mind the extra work. Every hour I work is a dollar more on my end of year bonus. Next week I'm scheduled for tons of work. I believe I will have close to 50 hours of work. My next two paychecks will be very nice.

The big news today is that I took a huge step towards being completely debt free. With all of the money from my last paycheck being cleared into my US Bank account today, and with almost 100 hours scheduled over the next two weeks, I went ahead and paid off the remaining $361.19 debt I owed to them. That was 2/3rds of the debt I have left to pay. All that remains is $80 to Annie for when she helped me pay rent awhile back, $110 to the parents for my spring term tuition and then $10 to Mary for one thing and then possibly a little more to her for something else. As far as I know, and that should be accurate because I kept a written record. that's all that remains.

I should be getting a bike very, very soon here. I have a couple models I'm definitely interested in. I'm going to confer with some bike experts and the parentals and if it all feels good, I'll make a purchase hopefully in the next week.

That's all there is today. Nothing social going on for me aside from work, work parties and some ward stuff.

Wow. I wish you all could have been there to see the firework show I put on tonight. It was pretty awesome. Nay, it was really awesome. In case you forgot or didn't read the previous post about it, we have food employee parties once a month. This month we chose to do fireworks. We get $5 per employee and we have 69 employees. So I had $345 to get fireworks and food with. I hand selected the best fountains my firework stand had to offer and then got an assortment pack with 17 fountains to fill in the gaps between the better fountains. Then I got lots of little things. Some tanks, a parachute battalion that shoots 35 parachutes off real quick, crackling balls, jumping jacks (a firework like strip that shoot off and jump around like ground flowers) and some ya-never-know-what-they'll-do happiness fountains. In all, I had around about 40 good fountains to light plus around 50 of the little stuff and then a handful of (possibly illegal) rockets, repeaters and mortars. Total of proabably 90-100 pieces to light. The fountains impressed big time. The majority of the larger ones lasted between 1:30 and 2:30 and then some of the smaller ones from the assortment went 30 seconds to a minute each. I lit them with a blow torch because we had one and it's just easier than anything else. Funny story though. One of them the wick lit but fell off or something so I lit it inside with the blowtorch and got back. 3 seconds later the entire thing just went KABOOM out of the side. It was pretty ridiculously awesome. It smoldered 5 feet from where it blew up for about 10 minutes. We had one or two more that also exploded. One was a Happiness Fountain and we expected it to possibly explode because ask anyone who has seen one...that's just what they do. Another was an assortment small fountain and the blowtorch may have lit more than the wick...who cares. Anyway...over the course of an hour we lit off all the fountains and novelty small stuff and then got to the finale. We did four 6 ounce rockets that shoot up high and then have a little report with cool effects and then one double ring rocket, which goes up high and explodes in two cool colorful rings that go out wide. Then we did a repeater that had 7 shots that went high and had multi-effects too. Imagine the smaller fireworks you see at big shows...a real small version of those is what these do. Then to finish it off we did mortars. Those are a super small version of pro fireworks. The pro shows have 10-24+ inch shells that shoot off high and then make BIG effects. Mortars are like 2 inches in diameter and do a large burst in the sky. The final mortar actually malfunctioned somehow and just blew up in the tube. It turned out really cool because the tube is made to withstand the force and just pushed the burst up, so it shot like a fan up a good 50 feet. Looked neat. This show only made me love fireworks even more and look forward to my Wyoming trip next month when I can put on another good show for people. I'm sorry you all missed out. I was hoping to get someone to tape this show, but they didn't have their camcorder ready. Oh well.

That was really all that happened today. I read 30 pages in Alma, wrote a letter to a friend, did some laundry and took a nap. Yay for days off. I volunteered myself to work all next week without a day off so another supervisor could do something with family, so I'm going to have another long two weeks without a break. It's ok though, I don't have much else going on right now anyway.

Alrighty then, let's hope some exciting things happen this week.

Today was a super easy day. This morning I returned the bookcase to Wal-Mart and picked up the drinks and food for tomorrow's employee party. Then it was off to work.

Work was a breeze. Soon as I got there we had a supervisor meeting. After that, the food manager went and bought us some chinese food. So I checked on my stands and then took a break and had chinese. By the time I finished, storm clouds were brewing. Not long later lightning was sighted and the park had to shut down all water attractions. The rule is we can't re-open them until 30 minutes after the last lightning strike is seen. We had strong winds, rain and lightning for a good hour or more. During that time, the food stands had a good little bit of business. Once the storm kept going, half the people in the park left. Finally the lightning moved on and we reopened. With one of our stands closed early during the storm and our staff reduced to minimum, the other supervisors and then the food manager all left. I, having the 1-9 as usual on Mondays, stayed to close. I had 6 employees in 3 stands (main grill stand, dippin dots and snow cone shack). It didn't take long for more people to leave with the evening being full of clouds, occasional light rain and cooler temperatures. By 8 when we closed, there were only a handful of people left and closing went quick. We were all out of there early and I was able to go to the bank ATM to deposit the paycheck I picked up today.

With tomorrow off, I can relax tonight and get some stuff done tomorrow until the food employee party at 9 pm.

After a long time of anticipation, tonight I made shrimp scampi with white wine. It turned out pretty good, but I'd like more practice at it. It wasn't as good as I remember it, but everyone liked it. It being my birthday dinner, we bought a strawberry swirl cheesecake to go with it. It had a cinnamon crust that made it a little different. I liked it.

So, my bishop decided to go out of town this week and didn't tell anyone. I showed up for my interview and instead practiced piano for a half hour before church. I rescheduled for next week. Good news though, I finished Mosiah and am now in Alma, effectively accomplishing my goal of going from 2nd Nephi to Alma in 3 days!

Church was really good today. Lessons were good, talks were good. We got out early too! This week should be a good one. I have the food employee firework show Tuesday. I work only one late shift, so work will be more enjoyable.

Not really much to say today. I look forward to the rest of summer.

After several 14+ hour days this month, including a 14 hour day followed by an 18 hour day this weekend, the firework stand is finished for 2010. All that remains is depositing the last of our money and waiting for the check. By our calculations, I will definitely get $1000. According to our final tally, our commission should get me $1090, give or take a few bucks. We'll see how accurate that is soon.

In other news, I almost got through Mosiah today. I'm about 20 pages short of starting Alma now and I should get there right on schedule with my goal tomorrow. I'm also meeting with the bishop at noon to discuss a mission. Hopefully I will stay awake for that. It's in 9 hours and I've worked 32 hours separated by only 7 hours of sleep! With that said, I think I'm off to bed.