Birthday Weekend

Another year has come and gone in my life and I'm amazed at how fast time goes by, seemingly.

As I sit here eating my breakfast contemplating my weekend, I realize how blessed I am. Is everything perfect in my life? Of course not! Right now it's not even close! But I realize all the positive things going on and the negative things don't seem to have as much impact as they could. I'm always a bit amazed when I hear people complain that their lives aren't great and they aren't happy. I think to myself, well that's a choice you make. You let the negative aspects of life weigh on you too much and they seem to take over. I just refuse to let the negative things take over. Of course I have my moments, some of my friends and family are unfortunately aware of a recent cranky spell, but it's always very temporary and really happens very rarely. So, as I think about my 38th year on this planet, I'm pretty happy! I got to spend a lot of time this year with people I truly care about and ultimately that's as important to me as anything else. Hopefully, in my 39th year I get to spend more time with the people I missed in 38 :-) Anyway, enough with the ruminations and on with the Birthday weekend post!!!

Thursday Nov 5 - The beginning - My High School and College buddy Rich came to town, and he treated me to a Jazz game for my birthday. Thank heaven it was the Spurs game where they played SO great and just ran the opposition out of town. We had 3rd Row seats and had a really great time. Nothing like being able to yell at referees knowing they can hear you. :-D We also went to Market Street for some amazing seafood and a lot of catching up. I hadn't seen Rich since last year's Utah vs Oregon State game, so there was a lot to talk about and we had a good time doing that. All I knew was, the weekend was off to a marvelous start.

The Jazz Bear during the Player Introductions. I need a new camera.

D-Will hitting freethrows, see how close we were? It was really cool. Thanks Rich!!!!!!

Friday Nov 6 - The celebration of the day of my birth 38 years ago (everytime I try to type 38, it comes out 28 - I think my computer is trying to tell me something) - Since I started my new job in April, I haven't taken a single day off (hard to take a day off when you're 100% commission), so I figured I was due, and it's my birthday, so I deserve it! It was so sweet! Nothing like being able to sleep in a little bit in the morning and then go do WHATEVER you want all day long on a work day! I kind of felt like I did on those days OH SO long ago, when Mike Smith and I would sluff school and take the Had' Bug or Mav' (I think usually the Mav') up to Sundance to ski. It's just a little piece of liberation that feels very good. So, I went and had birthday breakfast at Hagermann's.

They have some of the best french toast anywhere, and it's all you can eat for like $3, HOW can you beat that??? They make it on their freshly baked cinnamon swirl bread and provide all the powdered sugar and syrup you can handle, Buddy the Elf would be in heaven. Look at me, I didn't even bother getting ready for the day, I just got out of bed and went to breakfast - excellent.

Then I went to help a friend build a filing cabinet. WHYYY would I be doing work on a birthday weekend, you ask? Well, I like little projects like this and I like helping, so it worked out. The filing cabinet was of fine Swedish design and construction and excellent instructions with no words were provided, making this project a snap! For some reason I didn't take pictures, not sure why - too focused on creating such a fine piece of furniture, I guess.

The office where I was assembling the cabinet is located up by the U and happens to be about 2 minutes from the "Bobsled" mountain bike trail. So, with some forethought I had packed up my biking gear and was prepared to try out this trail for the first time, I was pretty excited. After a bit of a climb to get to the trailhead (you have to put in the work to get the payoff, you know!) I was ready to go. I launched myself into the downhill and literally was laughing like a kid on a rollercoaster the whole way down, it was THAT much fun! I would do this run every day of the week if I could. This REALLY made my day.

View of downtown SLC from the trail leading to the bobsled...

The car jump that I skipped on the bobsled trail, it was way sketchy looking...

The car jump that I took! I actually got a little too much air and almost flew the landing. Luckily it was set up with a great landing and it didn't jolt me too badly when I landed. Nitro Circus here I come!!! Though I'm sure the Nitro Circus guys would do this in their sleep, on a tricycle, blindfolded with one arm tied behind their back.

After getting home and getting cleaned up, I relaxed for a while and then had dinner and a movie to wrap up a great birthday day. Unfortunately the sushi I got was REALLY bad, so I won't be saying any more about that, other than I won't be going back. The movie was GI Joe on Red Box, and it was OK I guess. I'm used to the REAL American Hero - GI Joe, not futuristic soldiers who wear robotic gear??? For what it was and for a dollar, it was good I guess. Maybe 2.5 stars. Anyway, after hanging out for a while (a loooooong while) I finally went to bed at 4am :-)

Saturday Nov 7 - The aftermath. I awoke a few hours later to find a truly glorious November Saturday awaiting me. First thing on the agenda? Flag football in Sandy!!! The game was So much fun. Again, no pics because I was playing and I left the RiPhone in the car. I know, amazing. It's kind of like leaving one arm in the car. But I couldn't text and play football, so it got left behind. It was coed flag football and at least one play in four had to go to a female player. Coming up with inventive ways to get the ladies involved in the plays was pretty fun. We ran a lot of end arounds and flea-flickers. In the end, the ladies scored a few touchdowns, the guys got to show off a little and it was a lot of fun. We're scheduled to play every Saturday morning until the weather cuts us off. Hopefully, thanksgiving will be good weather so we can play a Turkey Bowl too!

After the flag football came some tailgating at the U and the Utes vs Lobos at Rice-Eccles Stadium. As is becoming our yearly tradition, Rich went with me to the game (the tradition isn't the UNM game, just A Utes game at home each year). Rich fit right in with the crazies around me in the area where I sit and we had a really fun time watching the Utes dismantle the hapless Lobos (they're 0-9 now). Again somehow, no pics, I don't know what was wrong with me Saturday. After the game (and it went a while, since it was on TV - the commercial breaks were excrutiatingly long) we headed back downtown for some REAL sushi. I had a recommendation for Ginza, so we tried it out. It was sooooooo good! Everything was SO fresh and tasty. Octopus, yellow tail, Mars roll, X-roll, and Ham and Eggs roll. I liked it as much as Tsunami, but they don't have the large selection of rolls that Tsunami has. I did find out too late that they have quite an extensive off-menu selection, so if you ever go, ask them about it. Luke Wilson was our Sushi chef, man that guy is talented! Bottle Rocket, The Royal Tenenbaums, Charlie's Angels, Old School and now Sushi Chef! Amazing. (Actually, it was just his doppleganger, but we called him Luke as he prepared our food. Luckily he took it in good humor and didn't feed us bad puffer fish or anything.) Again, we hung out for a while and Rich retired to his hotel to get ready for an early flight home the next morning and I headed back home to chill before heading to sleep myself.

Sunday - Nov 8, the conclusion. I was again feeling like a good breakfast was required this morning, so I took a drive up to Emigration Canyon to Ruth's Diner. This is another "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" location, and it was really, REALLY good. The wait was about an hour. And it was NOT warm up the canyon. It was, as you can kind of see in this picture, a beautiful day, just very chilly:


Once I got to my table, I asked the server what the specialty was. I kind of already knew, but I wanted to make sure. Sure enough, it's the "Mile-High" biscuits and gravy. I'll tell you right now, I have never been a fan of biscuits and gravy. BUT, I was determined to try the specialty as I have at each of the other DD&D locations I've visited in the SLC area. Let me just give you a visual of what I thought of the Biscuits and Gravy at Ruth's:

BEFORE:

AFTER (after like 2 minutes):

Yeah, it was unbelievably delicious. The biscuits were fresh and flaky, the gravy was so flavorful and not gelatine-like (you know what I mean, when gravy congeals a little and gets that gross, semi-solid gelatine consistency - bleck!) and the sausage patty and hashbrowns just added a nice bit of variety to the meal. I personally would add an egg or two to this meal, but who am I to question something that has obviously worked so well for so long??? No one! I just ate and enjoyed every bite, and thought to myself - could this weekend GET any better??? I just don't know how it could.

You're all probably wondering why this post is sooooooo long, well it's 4 days' worth of posting and I'm long-winded :-) You may also be wondering why most of the post is about various dining establishments? It's my birthday, so it just is. :-D You could also be curious to know if I got any presents. I did go get myself a present:

I got these boots. I'd been looking for some new boots for a while and everything is WAY too bedazzled right now, and these were the most plain ones I could find. I got them home and I think I hate them, so they're probably going back. But it's the thought that counts. Maybe I'll go to Costco and get a new point and shoot camera instead...

Finally, to wrap up the weekend, we had family dinner with all the local Hadlocks (except Griff, but I did call him :-) ), Donahoes and Grandpa. Amy made a really good chicken enchilada dinner, and there was Andrea's famous bean dip too! And Amy made Lemon-jello cake. As I told her while I was eating it, if there was one more drop of lemon juice in this cake, it would cease to be a solid and transform to a liquid. It was SOOOOO dang good, I could have eaten the whole cake with a little vanilla Ice Cream, it was awesome. I told Amy she did a great job filling in for mom on my birthday dinner, and she really did. Thanks AMY!!!! :-)

While everyone was sitting around talking and looking at Payce's amazing New Zealand pics, the weekend finally caught up to me and my eyes got HEAVY. So, it was off to an early night's sleep and back to reality on a beautiful Monday morning. THANK YOU to everyone who remembered my birthday and even just sent a Happy Birthday text. I'm not a big birthday guy, but I appreciate those who remembered and said something. Here's to a great 39th year!!!!