Guy Pulls Motorbike With Moustache

Livin' the Life

Last Tuesday at approximately 5:41 AM I was getting ready in our room when I heard a tapping on our basement window. Obviously, I was freaked out and couldn't check to see what it was. I yelled for Ryan who was all the way on the other half of the apartment to come see what was out there. Heroically, he pulled up the blinds to discover it was merely a raccoon who had fallen into our window well and was trying to escape. Initially, I felt bad for the raccoon because he was stuck in our window and his attempts at jumping out were unsuccessful. However, I was also hoping that the raccoon would remain stuck in our window well because I knew that would be the closest thing I could have to owning a pet. Seconds later, the raccoon mustered enough strength to jump out of the well, and I haven't seen him since. Ryan and I got a free month trial of Netflix, so we have started watching The Office from the beginning! I think we started watching it a week ago and we are now almost done with season three! When we have breaks on campus, we find an empty spot near an electrical outlet and watch as many episodes as we can until one of us has to go to class. Sure, it takes away some studying time, but I would also consider it quality bonding time-We both dislike the same characters and laugh at the same things. Since we've been married, we don't hear too much of the single-life drama, and The Office has filled that void for us- yay for entertainment! Last week we also had our car die in the parking lot after having been on campus for 15 hours. After several attempts to jump start it, it remained in the parking lot for two days. We thought we were going to have to get a new starter, possibly a new battery, maybe some fuses had blown... nope. It was the alarm. All we had to do was flip a switch to reset the alarm and the car started right up...cars? After not having to pay for a visit to the mechanic, we decided to treat ourselves to a radio for our car! We have had this car for six months without a radio, it was time. We love listening to music while we drive and the stereo came with a sweet remote. All in all, things are pretty good :)

School Moments

I hate when you are leaning down, about to take a drink from the water fountain and all of a sudden, the water pressure changes and the water shoots up, splashing you in the face. It is even worse when there are people waiting in line behind you to share your humiliation and are slightly annoyed that you are taking so long. On a separate note, but still related to humiliation, I will never run to class with a book bag on. Although one of my biggest pet peeves is being late, I will never run to class if I am late. These kids look so cool while they do it, and some people, like Ryan, can pull it off. But as for me, I feel like I personally look more like the goofy guy at the end. It feels so awkward to run while wearing a backpack, and everyone can see my awkwardness as I run, drawing more attention to myself. I have vowed to never run with a book bag on ever again.

Silent Streams and Spoken Dreams

Silent Streams and Spoken Dreams

By Ryan Adkins

It is the hope and work of J.R. Shute and Pat Rakes to bring about great changes in the American Southeast. These modern day Noah’s of Conservation Fisheries, Inc. (CFI) are “trying to keep some of the rarest species (of fish) alive.”¹ This is no easy task in an area of the country that is rich with freshwater animals, “nearly half the 573 animals on the endangered list are freshwater species.”¹ A few of the fish aboard the CFI Ark include the diamond darter, the Conasauga logperch, and the highly endangered Alabama Sturgeon. The fish are threatened by “sediments from human activities”¹, chemicals, pollution, and the very fact that they are of “no economic importance.”¹ It is for this reason that Shute and Rakes are relocating these endangered fish to a brick warehouse in Tennessee. This facility is filled with 600 aquariums and a “maze of pipes”¹ that flood the tanks with water daily. This is a difficult task that they have undertaken but their goal is “to have seed stock ready to restore the fish to a river, if and when society restores that river to its clean, free-flowing state.”¹ These two determined men will stop at nothing to see this dream become a reality.

What a remarkable story of dedication through conservation! Their methods used for conserving have undoubtedly saved thousands of fish and many entire species from extinction. However, by removing the fish from the polluted streams and rivers they are still only solving half of the problem. While temporarily safe in their new homes, the rushing rivers are still contaminated and will continue to be so until something is changed. I suggest taking a proactive approach to cleaning up the environment that the fish inhabit. This goes much further than protests, activism, and service projects. As Theresa Woody puts it “Complex environmental problems often require complex solutions; complex solutions call for an integrated approach, tying together science, resource management, and politics.”² This is the solution that I call for in this situation, a blending together of lobbying to congress, legal litigation, and environmental education. The following articles show how this is done and how difficult and time consuming this can be.

Like the struggles that face CFI, Catostomids, more commonly known as Suckers, are facing similar problems due to “migration barriers, flow regulation, environmental contamination, habitat degradation, and exploitation.”³ In addition, these fish are thought to be of “little social or ecological value”³ therefore they too lack the funding and a lobbying group they need. Therefore, the authors of this article from Biological Conservation recommend increasing “outreach and education.”³ “Similarly, any legislation or policy that directly reduces alterations to critical habitats or water quality degradation would also directly benefit suckers.”³ A great example of this plan in action is the Sierra Club and their contributions in restoring the Kissimmee River in Florida.

Journal of the North American Benthological Society reports that “the Sierra Club is currently developing a long-term conservation agenda and funding strategy based on the ecoregion well known to ecologists.”² Additionally, team work and a multi-faced approach has helped this the “largest grassroots environmental organization in the United States”² achieve enormous success, largely being that of the “Save Our Everglades”² program. This inspirational story gives hope to the thousands of environmentalists fighting the governmental red tape. It shows how difficult it is to obtain funding and support, but also the priceless rewards that can be attained through persistence and applied knowledge.

Noah’s Ark photo taken from Solarnavigator.net

Alabama Sturgeon photo taken from Outdooralabama.com

Everglades photo taken from Jazzhostels.com

1. Chadwick, D. (2010). Silent Streams Retrieved August 30, 2010, from National Geographic Web site: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/04/freshwater-species/chadwick-text

2. Woody, T. (1993). Grassroots in action: the Sierra Club’s Role in the campaign to restore the Kissimmee River Retrieved August 30, 2010, from http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0887-3593%28199306%2912%3A2%3C201%3AGIA-TS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-1&origin=ISI&

3. Cooke, S., Bunt, C., Hamilton, S., Jennings, C., Pearson, M., Cooperman, M., and Markle, D. (2004). Threats, conservation strategies, and prognosis for suckers (Catostomidae) in North America: insights from regional case studies of a diverse family of non-game fishes. Retrieved August 30, 2010, from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V5X-4CSG4FG-1&_user=456938&_coverDate=02%2F28%2F2005&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000021830&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=456938&md5=7dc00e46784bec8345a597353bb4f17e&searchtype=a

Life in 458

Last week Ryan and I celebrated our 2 month anniversary! It's amazing how fast time goes by now! So... what have we been up to? Well, we've moved everything into our basement and got some sweet hook-ups from KSL. We got called to be Sunday school teachers- teaching the marriage and family relations class! I finally left the laundry after 1 year and 4 months of working there and got a new job at the media center in the library! To celebrate our anniversary, I surprised Ryan by taking him to Sundance for the full moon ski lift ride! It was so much fun and he had no idea! He asked questions about what we were going to do... and somehow came up with the idea that we were going to be shot out of a cannon! We got hot chocolate and the view was really amazing and romantic! When we moved in, there were a few things that needed to be fixed. For example, our shower had almost no water pressure :( Luckily we got that fixed, but unfortunately our bathroom is still not quite put back together. We have finally figured out (for the most part) our tiny oven, which burned everything we put in it for the first week or so. We've found a few spiders, but luckily Ryan is so brave and thoughtful that he kills all of them! We have been watching Wipeout and Psych and we are currently listening to the 7th Harry Potter!

She Said Yes!!

March 19th, 2010 was a very important day. It was the day that Annie O'Brien said yes!! Throughout this blog, I will do my best at describing the events of the day.

First of all, I asked Annie on a date the previous Sunday for Friday Night. I told her to dress up and that we would be gone for a few hours. Thursday night she started asking questions about what we would be doing exactly, I did my best at answering her questions to the best of my ability without telling her what the plan was. I think that the questions made her more confused afterwords. I contacted all of my roomates, hers, and my brother, sister, and cousin. I had them all stationed at different places around town that were special to us. This was a little difficult to work out the timing but it was worth it and I just want to thank everyone who made this a success. Y'all were such a great help!!

The first stop on our journey was Apt. B-106 at The Elms. This is where we first met at a Linger Longer in October of last year. I met her and her roommates that night and we connected with The South and decided that we needed to have a Southern Night party sometime. Jodie Pack was in the apartment with a rose and a note. The note said, "Will you go on a journey with me?" She said yes, and thus we began. The second stop was Indoor Soccer Field where we played soccer together on the ward team. Annie was the captain. Meeting us there was David Bywater and Nicole Condie. They brought a rose and a note that read, "I'll Be" your biggest fan." I then played her "I'll Be" by Edwin McCain on the guitar for her. The third stop was Kiwanis Park. We walked there one evening and it was the first time that I held her hand. We were met by Katie Lindquist who again gave us her rose and a note that read "Tag you're it!"I wish I was wearing a ski mask. I was thinking that I wanted to hold your hand"-An inside joke. We left to the fourth stop. 7 Peaks Ice Arena, our first official date. Meagan Larsen was there on center ice in an empty rink with a rose and a note that read, "I will never let you fall, but you should know that I've fallen for you." Our next stop was back at The Elms at her apt. where we had Southern Night. Lindsay Brown was there, dressed southern and with an accent with BBQ on the stove and a rose and note that read "If the South secedes again, I'm sticking with you and we're moving to Mexico." Following we went up on Campus to a tree where we watched my first meteor shower. It was at 2 AM and the morning after we started dating officially November 16th, 2009. We named the first shooting star we saw Ophelia, which explains the note my brother Marcus gave that read, "Princess Ophelia, I named this star after you."-The Troubador

Next we went to the JSB where we watched Divine Comedy withmy roommate Logan and Meagan. Neither of us thought it was very funny, but we liked this one that was on the card, "I don't know what to do when people pray privately in public." Moving onward we went to the library where we were met by my sister Lauren and Jared. Their note said "I'm glad you like dates with me better than Harold." A reference to when Annie told me she couldn't hang out one night because she had a date with Harold. (Harold B. Lee Library) After, we went to the Wilk Ballroom where we went to a swing dance for the first time. Michael, Brian, and Cat were there and the note read, "May I have this dance? We danced, it was fun! It was also on this date that we created the acronym that perfectly describes us, CCC (Cutest Coordinating Couple). What can we say?! After we went to the Varsity Theatre where we watched Devotional together for the first time. Emily my cousin had a note that said, "You inspire me to reach my full potetial." We then had 2 stops left. Next we went to The Malt Shoppe where we ate on our first date. Thomas Gall was there with a note that read, "I love you "Just the way you are". A reference to the Billy Joel song that was playing in the Juke box. He also had on the table a corn dog and tator tots, the same thing we ordered over 4 months earlier. We had the entire place to ourselves, crazy for a Friday night!! I told her while we were there that that was everything and that we didn't have any other stops. I asked if we could just go for a drive. We got about a mile and a half away from the Mt. Timpanogos Temple and I asked her to close her eyes. When we arrived there, I walked her behind the Temple with the 12th rose in my hand and the ring in my pocket. I gave her the rose, got down on one knee, and told her to open her eyes. Before I could even ask her she said yes and gave me a big hug. Promptly, I asked her, "Annie O'Brien, Will you marry me?" Again, she said yes and we celebrated the evening. What an incredible experience it was for us and we look forward to a wonderful engagement and an eternal marriage!!