Candy Canes

I think it's safe to say that we all have foods that we really love. For the majority of people, such a food item might be chocolate (milk chocolate). I'm a little different from the majority of people, my favorite thing to eat is a candy cane (original peppermint flavor). This is a kind of shocking revelation for some people for a couple of reasons. One, how many people do you know with a favorite food of candy canes? Two, I think that my entire family's favorite food has something to do with chocolate. And lastly, candy canes are a seasonal treat. Which means that you can't just go to your local grocery store whenever you want and buy them. Oh well, I guess I'm just different from the rest of the world.

Have you ever had a favorite food get tested by another really delicious food that may or may not become your newest favorite? Of course you have! But then, have you ever had your faith in a tasty treat tested by something outside of another food? I think that is a less common occurrence. Yet, with my unlimited luck (I'm being sarcastic there), that's exactly what happened to me. I prefer to call the entire ordeal the Candy Cane Disaster. The events happened as follows...

I was in seminary one morning during the second term. I had walked in and sat down in my seat. At first the class went along normally, and after the devotional was over, I stood up, said my bit, and went back to my desk. Then, Brother Blank says the a kid in the class brought candy canes to seminary to celebrate Christmas being soon. I, loving candy canes so much, took my share and immediately tore off the wrapper to start eating it. Because, for some reason, some people don't like peppermint flavor, there was a lot of candy canes being passed around that no one seemed to want. So, by the end of the class, I had collected three or four candy canes and was happily enjoying life. What I didn't know, was that because I hadn't had breakfast, the four candy canes were too much sugar for my system to handle. About halfway through third period, the class right after seminary, I had nothing but sugar energizing my body. THIS IS VERY BAD. I quickly discovered that having sugar in such quantity is one, very bad for your body, and two, very bad for your citizenship grade. I don't know how to describe the misery that I must have caused in that class that day, but I do know that that was the only time I had ever gotten a red mark in geography. I continued on such a course for the next two periods until I crashed. I pretty much slept through the next couple of classes (which didn't improve how I did in class). So that's my candy cane story...weird, huh?

The Danger of Fun

I recently discovered that skiing is a very dangerous activity. It's really fun and all and I know going down a hill with a forty-five percent grade gives you a thrill like none other. But, how many of you know that while skiing down a hill of just snow, you can slice your knee open so bad you need stitches? Well, I didn't...that is, until this year.

My adventure started a couple of weeks ago, when the ski resorts were still open. My dad and I decided that we were going to go skiing the week before the Wolf Mountain Ski Resort closed. So, we get ready and head to Wolf Mountain around 5 pm for an evening of night skiing. About one hour later we arrive, strap on our skis, and head up the mountain. We go down a couple of beginner runs so that we can get in the groove of skiing. Then we go to try some of the intermediate routes. I have almost mastered those. In fact, I was planning on going on some of the black diamonds for my very first time that day.

My dad is a good skier too. He can handle himself on the slopes pretty well. He's a pretty hardy guy too. Unfortunately, the mountain seemed to be against him that day. It was almost as if it was trying to kill him. Every once in a while, for like no reason at all, his skis would come out from underneath him. The weather was against him, too. The snow wasn't very good. It was either extremely slushy or extremely icy. Neither one of those are very good for skiing. The perfect skiing snow is the stuff in the middle. Anyway, so we were going down this somewhat hard hill that we had just discovered. My dad was having an especially hard time and fell once or twice on that run alone. I was having a less difficult time, but it was still pretty hard. So we made it onto the main path and decided to stop at the lodge to grab a bite to eat. Taking the main path, we headed down the now easy hill.

This is the part that is really confusing to me. I decided to go fast, so I sped down the hill as fast as I could. My dad likes to take things slower and by the time I got to the bottom he was about midway down. In any case, I reach the bottom and look back just in time to see my dad make an especially bad fall. (To this day, neither of us have any clue what happened to actually make him fall.) His skis are off and he goes and gets them. Then he continues down the mountain like nothing is wrong. When he reaches the bottom of the mountain he explains to me about the fall and says it scratched his knee and he is going to put a band-aid on it from the car. I decided to wait in the lodge for him to get done. So, for the next five or so minutes, I stay in the lodge.

I get bored. When I go outside to the car to see what's taking him so long, I find he has mysteriously disappeared! I spend the next five to ten minutes exploring the lodge looking for him. I was about to go talk to the lodge staff when one of them approaches me and says,"Are you Moe Joe?" I tell him yes and he says,"Follow me." All the while I'm thinking that this must be a mistake. I didn't do anything wrong. My dad didn't do anything. So where am I going? We end up going to the first aid room, were one of the doctors just finished putting a gauze pad on my dads knee and taping it on. Apparently that scratch was a little more than a scratch. My dad had a huge wound to the knee caused by the ski blade. I then learned that my dad would need to go to the hospital to get stitches. That night he had 13 stitches. Sounds fun, huh?

Grrrrrr, Siblings!

OK, before I get anywhere in this I'd like to just clarify the title. I do NOT dislike my siblings. I'm actually glad that I've got them. (One reason being that if they weren't there I'd be expected to do a lot more around the house.) No, what I meant with the title is that sometimes they can try to pull annoying little phases of irritatingly weirdness on you. Know what I mean?

Like today, my brother got a new game. I had decided that I was going to invite a friend over to go to a BYU Ballroom Dance performance down in Provo. Well, my seventh grade brother decides that he won't let my friend touch the new game during his brief stay at my house. Now, I don't really care about his stupid game, I've already got a game better than his anyway, but I'm one of those people who are all about the principle of "why"*. So I asked him. He then goes on to explain that the reason is because he thinks that my friend is a nerd. Then, pretty much mid-sentence, he say's that my friend isn't a nerd, but a geek. And that's not even the end of it! A little while later he has completely abandonedthe idea of my friend being a geek, and say's that he's just weird. So I ask him, slightly indignantly, "Why do you say that?" He couldn't even give me a half-decent answer! His reasoning was along the lines of, "He just is," or, "Because." Not a very solid response. Nothing bugs me more than a unsolid response to a question.

When you accuse someone or something of something, I believe you'd better have a really good reason to the question, "Why?" Otherwise, your argument is a waste of breath. So, even though I don't intend on playing his game anyway, I argue away with that kid. Finally, realizing that it's pointless to argue with me, as it almost always is, he relents.

I still don't plan on us playing that game...unless my friend wants to play it, but that isn't a terribly likely scenario. Siblings are really weird, huh? I can't even begin to imagine the time that I would've done something like that. I probably did though. Maybe I still do...I don't know. I can't actually remember! So... I will write myself one of those challenges (and hopefully remember to keep it) to devote myself to never being a complete and utter idiot.

*Actually, this is only the case in instances when there are no bad consequences for me. For example, if the principle that I want to debate is a federal, state, city, household or public office law or rule, I will try not to askwhy, because I hate getting in trouble.

Book Report on DragonFire

The book that I chose to read is called DragonFire by Donita K. Paul. The book takes place in the land of Amara, a fictitious world of dragons and magic. The two main characters in the book are Kale and Bardon. Kale is a Dragon Keeper from a slave village, someone who is attached mentally to dragons so that she is able to commune with them. She’s about 19 years of age and married to Bardon. She is a very kind, gentle and compassionate person, but is not afraid to defend herself. Bardon is a knight of Paladin and uses his skill of fighting and clever intellect to lead the forces of Paladin against the evils of Burner Stox, Crim Cropper, and Pretender. He is about 20 years old and married to Kale. I think that the main conflicts in this book are Kale trying to overcome her feelings of awkwardness around her father, who she just barely got to know and Bardon’s conflict with pride.

This is the fourth book in the series and continues to describe Kale Allerion’s journeys in the land of Amara. In the previous books, Kale, Bardon, Dar, Leetu, and others join forces to stop the evil wizard Risto’s plot to take over the world. They find and hatch a Meech dragon, Regidor, and undermine Risto’s own Meech dragon, Gilda, turning her on their side. They end the journey with a final battle, and the wizard Risto is destroyed. Risto’s minions, Burner Stox and Crim Cropper, now become the split up Risto’s armies. While Kale and Bardon are searching for their families, they have to avoid getting captured by the evil minions.

In this book, Kale and Bardon are married, and are reunited with their families. Evil, however, has not yet been vanquished. Bisonbecks, one of the low races which are the typical warriors of Burners Stox and Crim Cropper, are burning and plundering the countyside. Kale and Bardon are called to Paladin’s castle for a meeting and are given tasks for the upcoming battles between Burner Stox, Crim Cropper and Pretender (who is another force of evil). Kale is to be sent with her father, Kemry, a fellow Dragon Keeper, to find and recruit dragons for the battle. Bardon is sent to prepare the rest of Paladin’s forces for the battle against evil. During Kale and Kemry’s search for dragons they meet up with Burner Stox, and through a complete coincidence of circumstances, defeat her, find her dragons and recruit them, sending them to Bardon for the battle with Crim Cropper. Bardon successfully prepares his men for battle and Crim Cropper is defeated, but with much loss for the good guys.

The main theme of the book is the same in all four of the books in the entire series. It is about family. Throughout the entire book there were instances with Kale and her father, learning how to be a productive and close family. There was a part in DragonFire where Kale and her father were both almost killed because they didn’t have any experience working as a family.

I loved the book, DragonFire. This is actually my favorite series of all time. It’s totally fantasy, which is my favorite genre. It also doesn’t do an overkill amount of descriptive detail, which I think would ruin the book. It’s got a really good plot line because the author doesn’t have to make up a new crisis every single time because she slowly draws out the existing crisis through the series. I think that the only way anyone could not like DragonFire is if they absolutely despised fantasy literature.