Living With Norman Bates

In preparation to start clinicals in Blackfoot, Idaho I began looking for rooms to rent on craigslist. The only place I could find in Blackfoot was a listing for a shared room for $375 per month. I contacted the person listing it and asked about the living situation. I was told that the rent included a private room and a shared bathroom with use of the kitchen and laundry facilities. He said that there was another renter in the basement and that he lived in other upstairs bedroom with his two small dogs.  I asked what size the bed in the room was and should have been concerned when the response was " I will have to ask my mom, she knows all that stuff". I told the guy what my situation was and that I was not going to start until the 14th of June. He told me that I had better hurry and get some money to him because he was receiving multiple calls on the room each day. Armed with this information I decided that I had better travel up to Blackfoot in the first week of June to secure the room and then go home until the 14th. This I did. I arrived at the house which was very similar in appearance to the Bate's Motel.

The owner was a 30-something guy who was a little too friendly. He wanted me to sit and chat with him and commented on each item I brought into the house. The outside of the house was totally thrashed but the owner and his brother had redone the bathroom, kitchen and put in new carpet. My room had been hastily repainted and the closet doors were missing and the shelves had fallen out and had been inexpertly reinstalled with a significant slant. The door was quite a bit too small for the jam and the door knob was old and did not close properly. Luckily I had brought a locking door handle from my house to put in. I started to take off the old door knob when he came slumping over and asked why I was switching out the handles. I told him that it made me feel more comfortable to be able to lock my door. He said that no one else had ever wanted to put a lock on the door before. At the time I was thinking "Well I also don't want to wake up in the night to you standing over my bed watching me." So after securing the room and moving in my stuff I left and did not return until the 14th. Things were OK for a couple of days except for walking in on my new roomie and a girl he was trying to woo. On about the third day I got home at about 9pm. I walked through the back door and noticed that the table was set for two and that one place had been used and the other had not. My roomie was sitting on the couch in the dark glaring at me and said that it would have been nice to know that I was coming home so late. Bewildered I asked why he had been waiting for me. He said that he had made tater tot casserole and thought that we could have dinner together. I told him that I had stopped and eaten at Subway on my way home and had not expected him to make me dinner. He huffed and said that it would have been nice to receive a call informing him of my plans. I had a pretty creepy feeling that night as I lay awake. I got up and did a thorough scan of the room to check for any cameras that might be there or in the bathroom.  Luckily I did not find any. I went to work and recounted the story to my compadres who also thought that it was quite weird. They all made reference to the craigslist killer. The next night after work I went to visit a friend in Pocatello and did not get home until after 11pm. My roomie's dogs started yapping away when I came in and he came out of his room in nothing but his boxer shorts. He barred the way to my room with his body and started to ask me where I had been. As he talked to me he began stroking the hair on his chest. I almost barfed.The next day I let my boss know all the weirdness that was happening and he said, "We have got to get you out of there, I have thought for a long time that I should just rent a place for the students to stay, let me make some phone calls." By the end of the day he had found a place and told me that I could move in the next week. He went to a local furniture store and bought new furniture for the entire house including queen sized pillowtop mattress, washer and dryer, big screen TV, couch, recliner, dresser, coffee table, complete kitchen set it was awesome. Anyway I told my roommate that he would need to post his room for rent again as I would be moving out. He flipped. He went on a rant of how I had to pay for two months because I had mentioned being in Blackfoot for two months when I had emailed him about the apartment. I reminded him that I had lived in the house for a week and paid for the entire month and that we had no contract or even verbal agreement on how long I would live there. He went off on how untrustworthy Mormons were and how every Mormon that he has ever known is exactly the same. This went on for a while and then I finally bid him goodnight and locked my door. He yelled and threw things and turned his TV up really loud and made phone calls complaining about dishonest Mormons. Partly because I feared what would happen if I left my things in his house for the day, the next morning I woke up early and packed up everything and was gone before he woke up. I moved into my new place which is a beautiful two bedroom apartment surrounded by wheat fields. Things went along well for a few days and then my roomie started threating to sue me for July's rent via text and messages on my phone. He went as far as to say that he was going to go to the hospital and tell them how dishonest I am so that they will kick me out. Well, needless to say I do not live in fear of getting kicked out of the hospital and I have successfully blocked all future calls for the aforementioned roomie. However, should you find my cold dead carcass in some ditch look at my phone and all the texts are saved there.

 This is a picture of my new apartment and the view from the backyard. I have the entire upper floor of the house and the bottom floor is a completely separate apartment. My boss pays the rent and we are only responsible for the utilities. My boss is the most generous human being I have ever met.

A Little R&R

Cami and I were invited to spend a few days in Lake Powell by some of our friends. Our friend's brothers own a houseboat that they were letting us stay in. We went with four other couples and without any children. We had a phenomenal time and absorbed lots of sun and enjoyed the beauty of the surrounding area.

Cami and her sweet sun glasses.

This was my first trip to Powell and I was amazed by the beauty of the red rock and the green water.

This is our friend that organized the trip, she and her husband are awesome.

One of our party surfing.

Another friend getting some sweet air on a wake board.

A backflip off the top of the three level house boat, crazy.

Each night there was a spectacular rain storm with thunder and lightning and crazy wind. Cami and I are so lucky to have such great friends that would invite us to go with them. It was great to get away and be a couple again.

Brown Spots on My Hand by Hoo Frung Pu

I had to leave for Blackfoot, Idaho early on Monday morning to check into my apartment and tour the new hospital I would be working at. Jeff, his son Michael and I got up even earlier so that we could go on a bike ride on the Providence Canyon skyline trail. As you can see from the darkness of the photo the sun had not yet graced us with its presence.

This is a good shot of the trail and the wild sunflowers that covered the side of the mountain.

More sunflowers.

Jeff and Michael at the end of the trail, or at least where our ride ended.

  

A view of Cache Valley

Another view of Cache Valley and the Logan temple.

Michael and I at the end of the road. Right after this picture was taken I ran my hand under my nose and got a whiff of something foul. I looked around for evidence of a rotting corpse somewhere but could not find a source for the smell. I mounted my bike and prepared to start riding when I noticed a brown blob on one of my fingers. I did not have to examine it closely to figure out that it was dog poo. I figured that as I was following one of my companions they had unknowingly charged through the offending pile of poo and sent it flying on to my unsuspecting hand. We inspected the other bikes and discovered that Michael had hit the pile but had sprayed himself as well as me with the stinky slime.

The mysterious stinkyness.

The face of innocence

Poop on the shorts and on the bike. Oh well at least it had not gotten on the mouthpiece of my camelback.

A Tale of Two Old Trees

My brother Jeff and I went on a bike ride  up Logan canyon. This trail is a must ride classic called Jardine Juniper from the utahmountainbiking.com website. The ride climbs 1800 feet over almost six miles and ends at a 1500 year old juniper tree.

The Spring runoff was in full force and there were several places where you had to either ford a stream for carry your bike over it.

This is just a funny picture of my brother. He looks like one of those Far Side characters.

More runoff

Even though there was A LOT of uphill the trail was very picturesque. The first couple of miles I thought I was going to die which was confirmed to me when I started to taste blood in my mouth but that eventually went away.

With 0.7 miles to our destination our progress was hampered by huge snow drifts that were impassible on a bike. We stashed our bikes in some trees and hiked the rest of the way on foot.

This is why mountain biking is superior to road biking. My wife and I argue about the merits of both sports but the picture speaks for itself.

This is a photo of me and the ancient tree.

My oh so happy bro.

I told my brother that I wanted to get a picture of the two old trees together and he gave me the stink eye.

The "Oh no you di' nt" look. Once we got back to our bikes we had an incredible ride down the 1800 feet we had climbed. By the end we were covered with mud but it was a blast.

Connor vs. The Toilet

The other day I came home and found the kitchen floor to be exceedingly sticky. I asked the kids about it and Connor said that he had made some lemonade and had not noticed that the sports bottle he had mixed it up in was leaking. Upon further inspection it became evident that the offending leak was pretty extensive and had filled the entire top shelf of the refrigerator, the kitchen table, nearly every counter in the kitchen and evidence was even found in the master bathroom. I told Connor that he needed to clean up the lemonade mess where ever it was found. He did a good job cleaning the fridge and the counters in both the kitchen and bathroom but he could not seem to motivate himself to put forth the same effort on the kitchen floor. After I had inspected his job for the 4th or 5th time I told him that if he called me to check it again without it being done than I has going to give him and extra job and that the extra job would be to use a pumice stone to clean out the hard water stains in one of the toilets. Since this post is entitled "Connor vs. the toilet" you know what happened. Cami often comments on the harshness of some of the consequences I dish out to the kids. She is probably right but I find that the benefits of good hard work never go amiss. So after checking the floor another 3-4 times Connor started the toilet job. Connor is a bit of a germiphobe and so he procrastinated actually doing the job as long as possible as evidenced by his position in the photo above.  

Connor with the pumice stone

Connor with a smile of satisfaction at a job well done.

Farwell To Hell-Paso

A perspective shot to see how steep this actually is

Well I have said farewell to El Paso. All in all the experience was not so bad but being away from home is never a fun experience. My original plan was to drive from El Paso to Farmington, NM after work on my last day and then continuing home the following day. I talked with one of my brothers about meeting up in Moab and doing some mountain biking to break up the trip so a new plan was born. I secured a hotel room in Moab and began the long arduous journey. I made good time, despite the gale force cross winds that had me steering sideways to go straight, until I entered New Mexico. Every freeway was under construction and traffic was terrible. I lost about two hours but was able to enjoy the road side signs that depicted the great flavor of the local culture. My favorite sign was for the Las Cruces Holy
Ghost Recreational Area. Unfortunately I did not have time to explore as I was behind schedule as it was. I drove on. And on. And on.
I finally arrived in Cortez Colorado and was looking for a highway that would take me to Monticello, UT. I drove through Cortez and then noticed that my compass in the car said I was heading south. I told myself that I would drive for another ten minutes and if I did not see a sign for the highway I would turn

Staring into the abyss

around and head back toward Cortez. Long story short I could not find the highway anywhere and finally asked for directions. Apparently the name of the highway had been changed several years ago but no one bothered to tell the people that made my road atlas. Consequently the road I was looking for was Highway 666. Figures!

At midnight I finally arrived in Moab a few minutes after my brothers. We checked in and messed around until 1 and then hit the hay. My oldest brother has an internal alarm clock that will not let him sleep past 6:30 or so and when he wakes up so does everyone else. This is more out of fear of what he would do you while you slept than because you felt like getting up. By 7 we were ready to go down to the continental breakfast the hotel provided which consisted of toast. We worked on our bikes for a bit and then headed to Dead Horse Point where we went on a 9 mile loop ride that was easy but fun.

After that we went to one of our favorite rides called M&M. I was super tired by then and my legs felt like I had the jelly legs jinx cast on them. The nice thing about the M&M ride is that there are a lot of places to mess around and so you can rest. The pictures of the bowl are from that ride. It was a very fun break from the trip although it did nothing to improve the soreness of my backside.

The stallions corralled

This is a video clip of a spill my brother took, I cannot open it on my computer but he said he could on his so if you can watch it enjoy.

A photo taken in tribute of my dad's smile in our family photos

A camelback sweat stain

A rock formation on the M&M ride, my oldest brother is at the base on the left