Encebollado!

One of my favorite dishes from Ecuador, if not my most favorite, encebollado simply is amazing. It makes a great meal for any time of day and always fill you up. I found an original Spanish recipe, but have decided to translate it in order to spread the good word. ¡Provecho!

ENCEBOLLADO

Ingredients:
2 lbs. albacore or any other kind of fresh tuna
1 lb. yuca (cassava)
1 medium red onion, sliced and pickled
1 tomato, sliced
3 tablespoons cayenne pepper
Salt
Pepper
Carawy seed
Cilantro
MSG

Preparation:
Cook the yuca in three cups of water, adding salt to the water. When it is tender but not soft drain the water.
Cook the fish in a pot with three cups of water. Season with salt, cayenne pepper, cilantro, MSG, pepper, caraway, and tomato.
When the fish is cooked (but not stewed), remove it from the pot and seperate it into chunks. Save the fish broth.
Add the fish broth to the yuca pot and smash the yuca into medium chunks.

Serving:
Serve the encebollado in a soup bowl after combining the fish chunks with the yuca/fish broth. Guayaquileños always season theirs with plenty of chifle, ají, and limón--so I recommend that.

Scary Mary

I'll never look at Mary Poppins the same way again!

Haikus Are Easy...

Meghan and I saw some dude with this shirt the other day. I think its coolness speaks for itself...

Stalin's Little Brother, The Babysitter

This hilarious sketch is dedicated to Tote, who was the first to introduce me to the comedic gold of Little Britain.

And The Winner Is...

In case you didn't know, the girls of B22 last year made a pact/contest amongst themselves that the first to successfully receive a sleigh ride courtesy of a male would be crowned the winner of said contest. As you can see, on MLK Day 2007 Meghan triumphed at Hardware Ranch in Cache Valley with yours truly. Human Rights Day is an obvious choice for such a victory, for minority elk have long struggled against majoritarian rule within the deer family.

The visitor's center was full of pelts and skins--including bears.

A very white and winged me. Who knew that I had the wingspan of a turkey vulture?

Meghan all up in dis Elk's grill.

Meghan with a beautiful 7 point buck that came down to feed.

"'Cuz it's lovely weather...

...for a sleigh ride together with you."

Moskau, Moskau

More old school Europop and its associated dancing!

Them Finns Sure Know How To Dance

The choreography in this music video is amazing...

Robot Wars!

Back in the day on Saturday nights my brother and I would watch Robot Wars, British import, on PBS. I randomly remembered this mechanized destructo-fest recently and hit up YouTube to rekindle these robotic memories. The fight I've posted here is one of the most brutal ever to occur on the show.

The Intense Midwest: A Michigan Christmas

Christmas '06 was like none other: I spent it in Saginaw, Michigan with Meghan and her family. I had a great time--the casa de Deibel is an accepting and loving place. But there was no room for slacking: with parties almost everyday and the house full of the 20+ member family there was always something to do. In a word: intense. The Deibels work hard, but they play hard too. I must admit, Saginaw grew on me while I was there. It's a nice town (I never did go to the east side...) and it's got character.

The first night I arrived the annual Deibel caroling party was held. The unseasonably warm weather allowed for the singing of many a Christmas favorite to almost everyone who was home on the street. Around 150 friends, relatives, and wardies attended--no small shindig. That's Meghan and I in the the right corner belting it out.

Look at that clean-cut kid... In the end, "meeting the fam" was a pleasant and stress-free experience. But the fauxhawk was tamed for a while for image purposes...

Meijer's: It's like Wal-Mart, but better because it's in Michigan and isn't a publicly traded company--it's family owned.

Merry Christmas, Dear! A very cute and sleepy-eyed Meghan on Christmas morning...

Tony's. Think of it like Al's on Happy Days. Straight out of a bygone era, Tony's is famous for its marinara steak sandwich and huge portions.

For example, here is their banana split. It's literally a salad bowl piled high with ice cream and toppings. It easily fed six people.

The babies! Well, not all of the kids were babies, per se, but there were eight kids under the age of five running around the house. Here they are recreating the nativity with some success.

La Casa de Deibel and its "face" greeting me the way the Deibels intended. Yeah, it's big. Seven bathrooms!

On the last two days of the trip we went to the Great Wolf Lodge in Traverse City. While there we enjoyed a huge indoor water park, outlet mall shopping, window shopping, and a Phase 10 game that just wouldn't end.

One of the little shops we perused on Traverse City's main drag had Uglydolls--a Katie favorite.

Las Vegas=Win City

The Panasonic PureVision Bowl in Vegas on December 21 was simply amazing. Our seats weren't half-bad either as this photo demonstrates. We were on the fifth row up on the north endzone! Oregon fans were desperately outnumbered, and rightly so. They got whomped on, 38 to 8. What a great way to end the season for the Cougars. This will likely be the most memorable season of BYU football for me as I was able to attend every home game, the Utah game, and this Bowl victory. The car ride back to Utah in the middle of the night with Zander was also memorable. Nothing beats banter at 3 AM!

Civil Servitude

My best friend Dave sent me this pic and asked me to post it here. Apparently a city crew was pruning huge branches right above his car and feeding them into a shredder. Obviously because asking him to move the car would simply be to much work...

Poetry, Naturally

My buddy Dave recently purchased Dragon NaturallySpeaking voice recognition software and has been playing with it ever since. One of the more interesting applications of this program involves the creation of abstract blank verse. One simply reads a passage in a foreign language like Spanish or Italian and allows the software to fashion its best English from the spoken word. These words are then broken into lines and stanzas and given punctuation. Voila! Creative poetry! For your consideration, here is an example: "Carving The All Base."

Carving The All Base

Tickets,
he can see a man.
Another don't all this,
a lower meaty subject
to look.

Dave Sim,
pray that I got Cipro sick
kids who really do
get no need to keep
that he
a he
Buffy be Buffy

whom he and I come
beyond whole lot of them.
Though.

Here is another example: "He, She, You." It was dervied from singing Sugarcult's "Pretty Girl" into the mic.

He, She, You

He makes you.
He isn't on a rebound – past such instead;
Liang Tang, 19, and again a matter of yellow head.
Head is the way.
You feel it's the way.
He did.
Is, was, the way.
He makes you.

She's arrayed in jewelry of bruises,
And Hillary in Singh tells her­—
You can navigate it, if you are ahead.
And ask what you did.
And you can navigate a matter.
You feel this way.
Maybe was the way.
It, he, you, father.

He thinks you for you,
He creates you for me,
You can use everything.
Soon he can navigate them out—
And he makes you cry,
In your mind;
You feel it's the way.
He makes you.

A Married Squirts!

Jan. 2, 2007: A day that will live in infamy as the nexus of time when my roommate of two years Squirts moved on from man-cub bachelorhood and entered into freakin' eternal matrimony. Little Squirts are soon to follow. (This photo just had to be taken when I sneezed...)

Once There Was A Snowman...

The first major snowstorm of the season brought, of course, the first Hitleresque snow sculpture.

Ode To W-Hall

It's the end of an era.

The physical home of almost every single one of my greatest freshman year memories is being razed! As I stood and gazed at this dilapidated dorm be torn down, I mused on its importance in my life:

-I kissed a girl for the first time (no blindsides) in the lobby here!

-I opened up my mission call to the Ecuador Guayaquil North mission with my whole family watching in the lobby as well.

-I played Goldeneye and Perfect Dark for many an hour in the commons room on the fourth floor.

-I lived in rooms 408 and 410 the fall and winter semesters of my freshman year, respectively.

-I made some great friends here that I still associate with--Josh Campos and Sterling Haring.

-I ate ridiculous amounts of junk food that DiningPlus provided me within the cinder block walls here... A hazy sugar-induced image of a mini fridge packed with Martinelli's and root beer comes to mind.

-Every now and then, I also did a little studying here.

What can I say? My experience at BYU in this "tower" was nothing short of the most holistic dormitory living one could ever expect at a university! For that, I thank you W-Hall. You're little more than a pile of rubble now, but the memories you gave me will always be in my heart...and cerebral cortex.

Jello Bread

I made it all myself! (Under the tutelage of Meghan...)

Vladimir Putin...Batman?

This isn't a doctored image. I found it on the BBC. So maybe it was Batman who poisoned Alexander Litvinenko...

Purely For Decoration

Nothing beats making your own salt dough ornaments and painting them. It brings the whole gang together!

Look at all of those happy ornaments! Now that they're decorated with wardies and shellac they're ready to rock the holiday conifer! Note the "Feliz Navidad" tree feat. Ben Patron, the German blob from ATHF, Baby's First Christmas feat. Edi Bayles, the heart feat. the Bishop and his wife, and the heart feat. photos of Meghan and I when we were 6.

The Holiest of Wars

On November 26, 2006 I attended one of the greatest Holy Wars of all time at Rice Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City. I had to initially dress up as a Ute fan so I could get into the game with a U student ticket that was given to me courtesy of my mission buddy Kyle Moon. I hung out in the student section where my ticket had placed me, but it was soon apparent that I was a "pilgrim in an unholy land." I shed the red exoclothing and quickly headed for the BYU fan section.

What can I say? After Johnny Harline caught that football it was all a blur... I ran down the stairs and jumped out on the field even before the game was officially declared over. I lingered and revelled in the victory while being surrounded by a silent sea of red. We won the Holy War my freshman year, and we won the Holy War my senior year. I just knew they would win this one. I could feel it the whole season. Although the margin of victory was smaller than anyone had wished, the Cougars' amazing last two final drives were a tribute to the talent and heart of this team. My attendance at this Holy War will always be one of my most cherished sporting event memories.

Turtle Power

The BYU home football game against New Mexico was to be our gang's last together as students. Therefore, everyone dressed up like ninja turtles (thank you Heidi Torgeson's sewing skills!) except for Dave, who dressed up like a gorilla. It's a logical connection--believe me. Congrats on your conference championship, Cougs!

Albuquirky II

I recently got a batch of photos from this summer from Lauren.

Maloni's b-day.

Eatin' pizza for Maloni's b-day. Notice the sweet shark hat we bought him.

These folks are the Walkers: Emily and Jeremy. Shortly after this photo was taken Jeremy made a crude comment and his wife slugged him.

CyFry, me, and Corn Derek during the oasis from selling that was the Sabbath day.

Party Island. I don't think Steve could have made a better investment in the morale of the office.

Garduños: real gringo Mexican food.

Dion's: the best pizza in town.

When we took Party Island down the Rio Grande we all turned as dark as Maloni due to the chocolate waters. Note Chris' D.I. short swimsuit.

Lauren and I dyed our hair a dark shade of brown together.

The birthday of Swag, our fearless leader.

One Sunday we had a picnic at a park in the mountains and watched the sun set.

Ready to roll on our first attempt to conquer the mighty Rio Grande.

Our automatic pump didn't work, so Steve's mighty trumpeter lungs blew up the raft.

Corned Beef Slash

Preprocessed meat tins can be a dangerous business... Just ask Zander and his 8 stitches. The funniest part to me about this is that the doctor that sewed him up was Irish and rebuked him for his cooking methodology...

Dang

Don't ya hate it when your flip flop breaks on campus in the middle of the day?

Blessed Baby Emma

Baby Emma was blessed on Nov. 5, 2006. I can't wait until she's older and we can tell her how Brother Diamond's whistling made us crack up all sacrament meeting long...

This is proud Uncle Buck holding her up Pride Rock-style post-blessing per LDS tradition.

Me Like Hockey

The Salt Lake Golden Eagles were Utah's hockey team when I was growing up. Were they any good, you ask? Let's look at the following superlatives:

• 1988 Turner Cup (IHL) Championship
• 1987 Turner Cup (IHL) Championship
• 1981 Adams Cup (CHL) Championship
• 1980 Adams Cup (CHL) Championship
• 1975 Adams Cup (CHL) Championship
• 1982 CHL Regular Season Champions
• 1980 CHL Regular Season Champions
• 1979 CHL Regular Season Champions

They were one heck of a team. You wanna know why?

They were fighters with their sticks and their fists.

Dad would take me to at least a couple games every year so I would be indoctrinated into the magical sport of hockey. In fact, he even got us tickets to the Golden Eagles' last game in '94. It was the most intense sporting event I have ever attended. People were throwing enormous paper airplanes onto the ice they'd fashioned from complimentary posters that had been handed out at the doors the whole night. At the end of the game, which was a close victory for the Eagles, the crowd literally exploded. A torrent of popcorn, soda, and beer flooded onto the ice. For a 10 year-old, this was an impressionable group dynamic. As a said before, that was their last game in Salt Lake City. Larry Miller had sold the franchise to Detroit. To this day, I refuse to buy a car from "Larry Miller the Eagle Killer." He robbed Utah of its amazing hockey franchise and me of part of my childhood. The Grizzlies are an OK team, but I will always remember the glory days of the Eagles and their graceful yet violent ballet on ice that ranks as one of my fondest childhood sports memories.