As the World Turns, and turns, and turns, then STOPS!!!

So....... it's nearly halloween. Costumes are ready, pumpkins are carved, house is decorated and all is well in the kingdom. It' s also the second (and mind you last) weekend of the Deer hunt, in which i am not a participant due to lack of tagage. But at any rate i have still been out a time or 2 in attempts to help others get their animals. I am looking forward to the halloween party at Justin's place because i haven't seen any of my friends for some time now. Also from what i hear there are supposed to be some pretty cool costumes about. Nikki is excited too but for some slightly different reasons. First off she gets her wires cut on halloween day and will be outfitted with a nice arrangement of rubber bands and will finally be able to eat soft foods. Reportedly, the first thing she wants to have when she is at that point is Gnocci with some nice soft garlic bread (which we did have until yesterday when i ate it all and caught flack over which led me to, somewhat sarcasticly, buy 3 bags of the stuff for her to enjoy). Also, the 1st of November is her birthday and she is in for a few surprises. Well not really becaus eshe told me what she wanted, but it makes me feel better to say that they are indeed surprises. Besides it is her birthday and if she doesn't at least act surprised i will be forced to take her presents from her and use them myself. Anyway i hope she has fun. Work is going..........period. I am getting very bored with the inspection job and have put in for a few other openings which include an Automation Engineer and a Process Engineer. I should hear today whether i have an interview for either. I am hoping for this for several reasons, only a few of which are good ones. 1st i'd get to see Nikki more because my shift would be moved to days. 2nd, i' be able to once again attend HDR (which i had to put second because i know my wife will be reading this........JUST KIDDING!!!). note- stay tuned for Nikki's responce and see if i get hurt for that ( bets will be taken at 100 to 1 odds). Nikki is growing ever closer to graduation, and has started to have doubts about going to New York for her grad present. ( By the way, Nikki and Jamie STILL haven't beaten Mario 3) Cars are all running well, dogs are fine (chubby but fine). Truely, all seems well in the kingdom, which of course means that all kinds of things are about to start happening and chaos will soon re-emerge from the depths. Not to mention we are near the "Holiday Season" when everyone gets all hipocritical and bipolar. Normally i really hate the Christmas season, but (due to a promice i made to Nikki) I am going to try and remain cheerful throughout. Does this mean you can expect to see me outside your doorstep caroling away with several other hopelessly tone deaf persons. I should hurt you for even thinking it. In reality i think the best way for me to stay upbeat is to aviod people all together, which given my recent work habits shouldn't be too hard. Enough about me, i'd like to say something concernign the comments posted by ya'll. I think i am going to start requiring at least a 2 sentence responce. If you can't think of anything good to say just throw a bunch of periods in there and make it look like there are a few lines. Oh by the way (as if it were a shocker) our house still hasn't sold, and i am still without internet (grumble grumble). My time has expired, i must return to the pit from whence i was summoned. Best of luck to all of you. By the way, don't do anything stupid. Toodles

An Eventfull Weekend

Well as many of you may well know, or could have assumed, I went Elk hunting this weekend. It went a little something like this: (fade into flashback...... euwewewewe)


Friday night i ended up working a full shift until 11:00pm and afterward began to head home. I got home around 11:30 and Jamie was just leaving after spending an evening with Nikki trying, fruitlessly, to conquer Super Mario 3. As they were saying their goodbye's i was packing the car for this weekends hunting trip. When i finished i ate some diner and retired hoping to get some sleep before having to wake up. Before i knew it the alarm was trying it's best to let me know that it was 4:00 AM and thus time to get out of bed and go kill something. Half an hour later we were on our way. We arived at camp at about 5:30 just as everyone was getting up and dressed (perfect timing). We talked for a few minutes, then began to file outside and get the Horses ready (a very faint dark blue line was begining to apear on the Eastern horizon). Shortly we were on the trail and hunting was about to begin. We rode to the top a small knoll which overlooked the main valley, which is usually packed with hunters, but was remarkably empty in comparison. After looking around for a minute we decided to ride up the ridgeline in to a clearing where we wanted to be (i.e. the clearing we have caught Elk in several times before). As we cleared the tree's into that clearing we did indeed see an Elk, and while a bit too large for having a Spike tag was fairly promising. As we tied off the horses the thrill of the hunt sank in and we fanned out a bit, My dad taking the Left side of the clearing while Luke and I moved to the right and stayed in the tree line. We were moving slowly and watching all around when Luke mentioned to me that my dad was down on 1 knee. Before i could look in his direction i heard his first shot ring out, followed by 3 more. Luke and I moved quickly to the edge of the tree line in time to see a few Elk, one of which was a quite nice Bull, dart through the clearing. As i looked back at my dad he gave me the thumbs up indicating he had one down and was heading for it. After Luke and I had pranced around a bit looking for the rest of the Elk in hopes there would be another Spike in the group, we returned to the kill scene to help prepare the animal for transport. Soon, we had the animal cut in half and ready to put on Tiny to have him pack it down the mountain. We had Nikki hold his head while my dad weighed down one side of the panures while Luke and I placed the hind quarters of the Elk in the other side. As the weight began to settle on Tiny he became a little concerned and started to turn which caused Nikki to loose grip of the lead rope. As he turned Luke and i began to loose our grip. Upon seeing this i told Luke to help me pull it out and let it drop and we'll try it again. As Tiny mover forward we lost our grip and the legs of the Elk droped and dug into Tiny's Flanks. Anyone who has ever even heard of a horse usually knows that the flanks are very sensitive and when gouged will cause a horse to absolutly freak out. As this happened i watched in high speed slow motion as Tiny reached out with his back leg to kick at the Elk and, missing, hit Nikki right in the face full force. After landing from her short and unplanned 5 foot flight, Nikki paused for about half a second and then gave a scream which will probably haunt me for a long time to come. Having shot several animals i know this is the sound any animal will make when it has been issued a life threatening injury and is still awake enough to realize it. Before i could gather what had happened i was on top of Nikki trying to assess her injuries. The large laceration on her chin was fairly obviouse and i was doing my best to stop the bleeding. As I applied pressure to the cut i noticed that her Jaw had a little more give to it than it should have. I opened her lips and wasn't too surprised to see her lower jaw sitting about 1/4 inck to the left of where it belonged. The next few minutes were comprised of me explaining to her what had happened, a field dressing and checking her for signs of shock. Surprisingly, and very much to her credit, she was able to compose herself enough that she rode her own horse for an hour to get to my sisters waiting car. The Heber Valley Hospital was ready for us by the time we arrived, and within an hour had verified my observation with a CT scan of her head. After a Tetnis shot, a Demerol shot and some explanation about who to contact, we were on our way to the on call Oral Surgeon at Utah Valley Regional Hospital in Provo. The remainder of the night beheld her Jaw being wired shut and the large, not to mention unwelcome, gash on her chin being closed. Since then she has been resting comfortably at home with as much juice and liquid food items as she can handle. I ask only this of all who read this. If you get a spare moment, please call her and let her know you're thinking about her and wish her well soon. This has been a shocking wakeup call for me pertaining to the frailty of human life and how quickly things can happen. It just goes to show me that even if i am just 10 feet away, sometimes it is just too far. My best wishes to my beloved wife.

Disgusting Piece of Distented Rectum....so to speak

I know it's been a while but i have been busy what with the new car and work and hunting season and selling the house and signing up for BYU (which didn't turn out) and now signing up for UVSC and working on my Rock Crawler and spending time with my wife and playing with puppies and sighting in for the hunts and fixing stupid minor problems on my car that take 3 days and disassembling the engine to complete and blah with the blah bugno ih blah bo guoi blah blah blah.

Neurieke, I have been a bit busy and having to go over to my parents house to check my e-mail (which i do still read from time to time) is kind of low on the priority list. Anywho the Elk hunt starts in 8 hours and i am no where near the mountain, but i will be. So anywho, i am hoping someone is going to have some type of halloween party or something because i haven't seen hardly anyone for a long time. I did see Dave (and his shiny new fuel efficient nature killing machine) last weekend and watched a movie while eating some really bad Oreo shakes that i am proud to say i effectively screwed up. So i don't think it is too far of a stretch to say i feel like a disgusting piece of distented rectum. By the way, if anyone feels like sending me an e-mail, feel free because when i do check it i will respond.

I think NIkki is doing ok, i don't know because i haven't really seen her for a few days and i'm pretty sure if something was indeed wrong i'd know about it. Anyway i gotta go for now. I really will try to update this more often. I really miss having the Internet at home. Anywho, toodles.