April trip to Utah

So, although Richard already posted about his trip to Atlanta, he had another conference right before that in SLC, so the kids and I decided to go there with him, and stay with family while he went to both so we wouldn't be alone for quite so long. First we all stayed at his Sister's house near Park City since that was closer to where his conference was, and I also got to go to my mission reunion while we were there, and visit my Brother and his family in Heber. Then, when Richard went back to Boise and to his other conference in Atlanta, I went with the kids and stayed at my Parents' in Mapleton. I got to hang out with my best friends one of the nights we were there, and the kids loved riding on the four wheeler and jumping on the trampoline. They were getting really good by the end there! It wasn't ideal Spring weather like I was hoping for (especially with the foot of snow that dumped on us in Park City Sunday morning), but it could have been worse. Overall, it was a fun trip. Exhausting, but fun. My mom was so kind to drive back with me and the kids to Boise so I wouldn't be on my own (she flew back to UT since she can fly for free), and on the way we stopped at the famous Garden of Eden truck stop --complete with the tree and the snake and everything --in case you were wondering what those pictures were of there at the end.

Trip to Atlanta (Apr 5-10)

I was in Atlanta, Georgia a few weeks ago (Apr 5-10) with friend and fellow BSU graduate student Jeremy going to a national Rhetoric and Composition conference. I was going to take the camera with me so I could document my trip effectively; however, I realized when I got there that I had left it with Laura, so we're stuck with my terrible cell phone pictures. At least I can describe the top ten experiences, in mainly chronological order:

• New stuff--taxi, pub, scallops: believe it or not, before this trip I had never been in a taxi (although I felt surprisingly prepared by the movies I've seen) and I had never been in a pub/bar (Jeremy and I got late-night hamburgers--they were surprisingly good). I'll mention the scallops experience later.
• CCCC in general--The Conference on College Composition and Communications (CCCCs) is a few orders of magnitude bigger than other regional conferences I've been to. In other conferences, there are around 5-7 panels to choose from per 70 minute block (with the majority of them on one day). At CCCCs, there were around 40 panels to choose from lasting over the space of three full days (and workshops on the first day). It was impressive, and there were some fascinating discussions/presentations.
• The hotel elevator ride--The hotel that hosted the conference was 47 stories high. And, as you can see in the pictures, it was open on the inside. There were glass elevators on the inside that went up all the way to the top--they were impressively fast. On the way down, it was near-free-fall speed. I wouldn't have thought I would classify an elevator ride as one of my top experiences, but it was super fun.
• Meeting swedish guy--On Wednesday, I attended a full-day workshop on incorporating technology in teaching (it was very helpful--I learned some things I wanted to know, and things I didn't know I wanted to know). In the morning, as we were waiting for it to begin, I overheard that a guy at my table was from Sweden. We talked about general Swedish things, then during a break talked in Swedish for a bit. He was very complimentary (especially about my accent), even though I felt very self-conscious.
• Meeting famous people--During the last few years, I've been reading a lot of essays and books by Rhetoric and Composition scholars. Because this is a pretty major conference, I actually got to meet (or at least see and hear) a few people whose work I know and respect. We had lunch with Bill Lalicker (whose work I read earlier this semester), was introduced to Linda Adler-Kassner (who I've also read a lot this semester--she's good friends with my first-year writing program director), saw and heard both Peter Elbow (who we sometimes affectionately call "The Elbow") and Steven Mailloux. They were those geeky "I'm never going to wash my hands again" type moments.
• Scallops--Both Jeremy and I were awarded travel grants, which I believe improved our overall experience significantly. Rather than living on granola bars and rolls stolen from buffets, we were actually able to try out some of the local cuisine. At a particularly swanky restaurant, I decided to try the scallops. I've never really been a fan of sea food, and decided I should give it another try. I've never had scallops, let alone Nouvelle cuisine, but it was a good experience...even if I needed Jeremy's help to get them all down.
• Zoo with Jeremy, Ian, Sarah, and Christian--Ian, Sarah and company only live three hours away in Alabama, so they decided to come meet us at the zoo, then take us to the Atlanta Temple Open-House. The zoo was packed, steamy, and there were bees everywhere (friendly ones, though), but we still had a great time talking, looking at animals that they would only have in a larger zoo (the gorilla exhibit was huge!), and trying to keep up with Christian. It made me really miss Ethan and Gabriel when Christian was doing really cute things (like offering Jeremy pretzels, insisting that we all get a stamp on our hands, waving to the people on the zoo-train, etc.).
• Temple Open-House--After the zoo we went to the Atlanta Temple, which had recent extensive renovation (two-years' worth). It's not one of the most impressive buildings from the outside, but the inside--as is to be expected--was amazing. I think it was a positive interaction with the church for Jeremy. It was also really fun to go out to eat with Ian, Sarah, and Christian afterwards.
• Getting asked for money 7-8 times--Throughout our time in Atlanta, we were constantly getting asked for money by guys on the street. I think we looked like wealthy, young business men (although Ian joked that we only needed to say "grad student" and they'd apologize). One particularly creepy guy approached us as we were waiting for a bus. He was...umm...invading my personal space. And he wasn't making much sense, but he was fairly friendly. Apparently he owned a car dealership...yeah. Anyways, at one point he asks me "you know what I'm sayin'?", and I honestly blurt out, "um...I actually am having quite a hard time following what you're saying." A little while later Jeremy comes to my rescue by recommending we go get something to eat. We walk away and leave the guy guarding our bus stop. The bus never came, but we were still hesitant to walk too far away in case the bus came while we were pretending to leave.
• Church--I had time before our flight to go to church on Sunday. It was great to see the work the ward had put into helping making sure the open-house went smoothly. It was also fun that I was able to get to know two other guys who were at conferences and visiting that church for the first time--one from California and one from Utah. It was Fast and Testimony meeting, so everyone that got up said "good morning brothers and sisters," to which the congregation would reply "Good morning!" There were an average of 3-5 people waiting to bear their testimonies at any given time. There were some really cool people (the bishop was particularly awesome).

Honorable Mentions:

• Leaving my jacket in the hotel--Yep. I went back to Boise without it. But I was able to get it back by calling the hotel and giving them my credit card info (I was super hesitant to do so, but I really like that jacket. And I had headphones in the pocket).
• Travel--I really like airplanes. Forgetting that I had a pocket knife on my keys, getting stopped by airport security, and being forced to mail it to myself--not so much. But I enjoyed all the flights.
• My conference presentation--It went well, even though I didn't have it completely ready until the day before. I'm really glad Jeremy was nice enough to help me smooth out some of the rough transitions and such. My panel had speakers with really different topics, which is why I think it didn't have very good attendance. Still great though!

Here's the video:

March 2011

Here's a montage that should have been posted weeks ago. We're a little behind the times. We have a few more in the making of the past few weeks which will come out soon. This is just some more of how we've been passing the time here at home. St. Patrick's day is in there somewhere with just one little picture of Ethan eating some cereal --what you can't tell from the picture is that the milk is green. Those sneaky leprechauns... Besides a green/Irish themed dinner with the Boise fam, that was pretty much the extent of our celebrations. The kids and I still spent most of our time indoors, with short excursions on nice days to go look for any sign of Spring we could possibly find. There might have been a few new buds and a flower or two back then but not much. It was a late Spring here this year. We were happy to have a visit from my sister to break up the monotony, and spent most of the month looking forward to our Spring Break trip to Utah, General Conference, and Richard's conferences. Those montages to come.

Enjoy!