Prepare a Wild-Caught Rabbit for a Meal

The first thing you want to do, after catching a wild rabbit, is to calm the rabbit down. A panicked rabbit does not make for a pleasurable dining experience. It taints it. Pet the rabbit. Maybe say something soothing, like "Easy, Brownie, easy" (if the rabbit is brown) or "Easy, Gray boy, easy" (if the rabbit is gray). You might just say, "Easy, little bunny." (But, really, can't you come up with some kind of name besides "bunny"?)

Feel the belly. It should be plump and fuzzy. But skinny is fine too. Feel the ears. They should be soft and pink. Man, I love the ears.

If you like your rabbit spicy, try rubbing him with wild sage or wild mint.

Place the rabbit on a rock with good drainage. Next, take out a long, sharp butcher knife. Try not to let the rabbit see the knife. You may not want to look at the knife yourself, as some of them are kind of scary-looking.

Hold the rabbit down firmly with one hand. With the other hand, take a carrot out of your backpack. Still holding the rabbit, place the carrot on the rock and slice it with the butcher knife. then feed the carrot pieces to the rabbit. If the rabbit doesn't eat all the pieces, feel free to eat the leftovers.

Let the rabbit go. For fun, throw the knife at a tree trunk, to see if you can make it stick, like Jim Bowie or something.

(P.S. The reason you want a rock with good drainage is in case he pees.)
- Jack Handey

I'm a capitalist

So the other day I'm eating my breakfast (which I believe was a wonderful egg sandwich with ham and cheese) when on the Today Show said they were going to talk to a Freegan about not spending money for a month. Being in a money crunch mode myself right now, I thought that this sounded like a great idea. I mean, I love free stuff, and love for people to give me free stuff, so maybe I could be a Freegan too!

Well, I didn't get to watch the piece - had to run to school, but while taking a break from reading more law this afternoon I decided to look up Freeganism.

At least it brought humor to my day. And while I will continue in my pursuit of free stuff - particularly free meals - I don't think my imperialist and capitalist points of view will allow me to ally myself with such people. Oh - nor will my work ethic. Lazy trash diggers - get a job.

Labor Day in Lubbock

So I decided I needed to do something different today, but not wanting to spent much in the way of monies on gas, I decided to go mountain biking. Therein lies the problem, for you see, in Lubbock there are no mountains. I decided a dirt road in the middle of Nowhere, West Texas would suffice.

So I went riding about 25 miles today, 12ish miles each way, got chased by some crazy dogs, saw lots of crops, and when I decided to turn around, this is what I saw:

To the North

To the East

To the West

To the South

So now you all know what you're missing out on...

Uh oh...

While taking a break from reading about how to cite legal documents, I was IMing my friend Shannon (aka Shanno) and mentioned how amazing THE GOOGLE is. Well, now I'm even more impressed. Check it out!

What's new in Lubbock?

Well, there's not much new in Lubbock. I study a lot. I'd guess last week I did somewhere around 50 hours, and I certainly wasn't pushing it. This week I'd guess I'll be up closer to 70...
On the other hand, I did find this website today that I'm excited about. It's called Texas Escapes and it has all sorts of stuff about the small towns here in Texas. Like the ghost towns and such. I'm hoping to explore the neighboring towns/counties on my bike(s)....

My first day of classes

So I just finished the first day of classes here at Texas Tech law school. It wasn't as intense as I had pumped myself up for - despite everyone during orientation saying that there would be no introductory class, every class was simply an intro session. So far, so good, but now I have a ton of reading and briefing to do. But, since this is my first post in a week or so, I figured I'd put down a little about the transition to Lubbock.

Umm... it's had its hard points. Leaving Provo was a good thing, but a really tough thing to do. I'm very thankful that my sister Kristi and her husband Justin are here so I at least know someone (and their son Caden, whom I discovered is very ticklish). I've moved into an apartment right next to the Lubbock Temple, about 2 miles from Kristi. Here's the view out my bedroom window.
Yup, that's Moroni. Ironic that I move from Provo UT to Lubbock TX and I'm now living the closest to a temple in my walking life (when I was an infant, my parents lived in Wymount).

Also, it's kinda fun being 'the Mormon' again. So far I've found 2 inactive LDS law students - both of whom sit right next to me in all 3 of my major classes - so I have some fun missionary work to do. And after I get through studying today, Texas Tech has some pretty nice boxing equipment. So that's where I'm at - but I'm also getting a hankerin' for some adventurin'.

The sad farewell

I'm finally leaving for law school, in about 5 hours. I'm packed, the farewells said, and I leave first thing in the morning with my dad, almost exactly 10 years after he dropped me off for my freshman year at BYU.

I'm excited for what lies ahead in the coming weeks and years, but right this moment I'm sad to be leaving my friends behind, and a place I love, for Lubbock Texas. To all, thank you.

Mandy

If there's one thing I'm aware of, it's how horrible Barry Manilow is. Forced to endure countless hours of his music while on road trips as a child with my parents, the torture probably warped my mind in ways nobody should discover.

And this, well, this is incredible

Before leaving Utah

Before leaving Utah, there are somethings that need to be done. Such as climbing to the restaurant at the top of Bridal Veil Falls in Provo Canyon. Here's the view from the bottom. The restaurant is at the top.T-Rav had hiked this a few weeks back solo, and said it was kinda nuts. Well, it was. We crossed the river, that was fine. We went up these ropes, that was fine. Hiking an hour or so in the river got old, but other than that this was really a sweet hike. Very difficult - I would discourage most everyone from doing it, but if yous gots the guts, it's a sweet hike. The restaurant is still in pretty good shape, the view was amazing, and T-Rav and I left our marks.

Oh, and in the restaurant, I got some very good advice.

Watch this

Saw this on Tyler's Blog. Very worth watching.

3 sweet things

3 sweet things occurred this week

1. I got a 7% raise at work. Yes, I'm quitting here in 3 weeks - but I'll still take some extra monies.
2. I discovered my cadaver's worth$5225.00The Cadaver Calculator - Find out how much your body is worth. From Mingle2 - Free Online Dating

3. So I googled myself the other day, typing in just RyRy into the search bar, and I was #2! I think that's pretty frickin' sweet. Of course, then the webs shifted their alignment, and I'm once again nowhere close to #1.
   

   
   

Harry Potter Spoiler

Harry Potter 7: the Deathly Hallows comes out this weekend. I've become privy to some insider information I've decided to share. I'm sure that some will be disappointed by this action, but given the adult themes in the newest Harry Potter, I think you'd be well advised to read on.

************* SPOILERS BEGIN HERE *****************

• Ron dies - by Harry's hand!
• Hermione gets knocked up
• Harry dumps Ginny for Neville
• Snape and Lucius are seen on the Marauder's Map together quite often after hours
• Harry's owl Hedwig, sick of being 2nd fiddle, eats the retarded elf Dobby
  
• The Dementors start up a polka band

************* SPOILERS END *********************

The Grand Tetons

So I went to the Grand Tetons this weekend - it was wicked awesome. Took off Friday about 1, got up there, and got a campsite at the north end of the park.
On Saturday we went hiking. What started out as a small hike ended up as an all day, 16 mile hike. It was pretty sweet though. Then we showered (the benefits of a National Park), grabbed some food at Bubba's Barbecue, and crashed. Drove back Sunday morning.

I really like the Grand Tetons for a number of reasons, but one of the primary is that it's pretty empty. Everybody is either in Jackson being a tourist, or in Yellowstone in bumper to bumper traffic. While I love both of those places as well, the Grand Tetons were almost empty once we got out of camp, and this in their prime season.

I highly recommend a trip like this to everyone who loves America.

The Solstice

So to celebrate the summer solstice, my buddy Trav and I took off for to Wendover, then turned north and went 40 miles on a dirt road to the middle of nowhere. Our destination: The sun tunnels.



There we met some friends, including this sweet hippie dude named Jim (that's Jim with his shirt off in this pic with some of our new friends)



So the idea is that you wait around and watch the sun set through these tubes that are perfectly aligned with the summer and winter solstici. While waiting, more and more people showed up - eventually about 35 people came - it was a pretty good crowd for the middle of nowhere.


So we all watched it set

















and hit the road back to Provo.



Well, after I got a picture with Jim that is...

Eco Challenge 2007

So I did the Eco Challenge with the football team again this year. I did a lot better this year - still finished about half-way through the pack, but cut an hour off my time from last year to finish at 6 1/2 hours.
The Eco Challenge consisted of:
1 mile swim in the Richards building
An obstacle course - shuttle run, bear crawl, 600 pd tire flipping, sled pulling, pushups, sled pushing, farmer's walk, parallel beam walking on hands thingy, and 20 rope pullups. Lots o'fun.
35 miles of biking uphill on a mountain bike - up to Squaw Peak, then Southfork canyon, then up to Sundance.
Hiking/running up to Stewart Falls, then on to Arrowhead summit.

Overall I enjoyed the event a whole lot more this year, in part because it was warmer making the bike ride more enjoyable, and because I just hiked quickly instead of running, saving my strength and moving faster the entire way along.

Preparation

The Eco-Challenge is this weekend. Hopefully I'm prepared. I did it last year in 7 1/2 hours - this year they've apparently removed the whole 'running up and down every stair in LaVell Edwards Stadium' thing, to replaced by an obstacle course of Bronco's design. I was told 'I hope you've been working on your bench and squat.' Umm... I'll report back when I know more.

Texas and Strawberry

So two weekends ago (Memorial weekend) marked 1 year since my return from Iraq. It's amazing how quickly a year can come and go...

I spent that weekend on a sweet camping trip with some friends up near Daniels summit, right by Strawberry Reservoir. We found a sweet spot to camp, had some drunk dude with 1 leg stop by our camp for awhile, then went hiking the next day while taking all dirt roads back to Provo. Here's a pic of us hiking near Poison Ridge.


Then last weekend I went to Texas for my buddy Daniel's wedding. It was a very nice wedding at a nature preserve down near Austin. It was crazy hot down there - the humidity was killing me, and being in the sun on a 95 degree day in a tux: not cool.

Adventure of the Day: Maple Canyon

So last Saturday several of us went down to Maple Canyon near Moroni Utah. Yes, it was an extremely urban adventure...

Maple Canyon's pretty sweet, and has nice short hikes. Here's a pic of me playing around on a waterfall. I didn't go all the way to the top this time - I did it the last time I was there, and didn't feel any pressing need to do it again.


Also, an update on law school: I'm 99% certain I'm going to be attending Texas Tech in Lubbock. I've decided this for several reasons, one of the primary being cost, but also being able to be near my sister Kristi and her family. In truth, New York really appealed, and California sounded good, but neither really felt right. This feels better, though I still have no desire to make a life in Texas.

The 1% doubt is in case a school in DC calls - I'm currently on a waiting list out there.

Update on my decision(s)

So to update everyone on my decision: It is now between Santa Clara and Texas Tech. I was accepted to Santa Clara last Monday, and I've been wrestling with the decision ever since.

Santa Clara is in the top 10 for Intellectual Property law, the area I intend to go into. But it's Mondo expensive (which is French for muy expensive).

Texas Tech is in the middle of nowhere Texas, but it's affordable (ie no debt when I get done) and my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew live there. On the downside, I don't have any great desire to move back to Texas with any sort of permanence.

So the question is, A) Will the increased price for school pay off with increased opportunities? B) If I attend Tech, will I be able to get a job out of state?

I plan to have made my decision by this weekend.

In other news, I read a sweet article about Gen Y today. Check it out.

Adventure of the Day: Rock Canyon

Yes, it's a very nearby adventure, but what makes it so great is once you get past the hustle and commotion of the lower trail, its conveniently close and quiet. I went all the way up to Rock Canyon campground, and just before reaching the campground saw an incredible view of Provo Peak covered in snow, with green hills and stream full of rapids just beneath. It was pretty dang sweet. I'd have taken a picture, but since all I had on me was a pair of shorts, shoes and a water bottle, this picture from last fall of the same peak (different angle) will have to do.