Matt Diaz is The Man!

I gotta give props to the Braves right fielder. In his last 10 games he's batting a ridiculous .524 (22 for his last 42). Why is he on such a hot streak? Because he's awesome!



In Colorado, Matt was one of just 4 players to take some time to come meet fans and sign autographs. And how many professional athletes do you know that put scripture references on their autographs? We may not belong to the same Church but I admire him for his faith and example. Call it being blessed for faith, or karma, or whatever you want, but Matt is doing great because he's a great guy!

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

With PT school ending on August 7th and starting up again on August 24th, I got a sweet 2 week summer vacation. I spent the first week mostly just relaxing after a ridiculously stressful finals week. I bought an mlb.tv package so I could watch some Braves games, and we got a cable to connect my laptop to our TV so I don't have to watch them on a little screen. That has been awesome because I haven't been able to consistently watch Braves games on TV since they stopped showing them on TBS a few years ago. Amy and I have also watched some shows from Hulu on our TV as well, which is cool.

On the 17th my brother got married, which meant my other brother and his family came down from Seattle for the week and we got to spend time with them. This made the second week of vacation much more exciting. Here are some highlights:

Monday, 8/17
Jeff & Laynie's Wedding

The wedding was great. Had a luncheon at Madeline's Steakhouse, and then ceremony and reception at The Old Meetinghouse. Jeff and Laynie looked great, as did Hadley and Gunner. Gunner was a little stud in his suit! I saw a lot of old friends from my parents' ward, had fun decorating their car, and should have eaten a lot more cheesecake.

Tuesday, 8/18

I went to Raging Waters today for the first time in approximately 17 years. That is my best estimate, because I know I haven't been since I moved to Utah (in 1995), and I don't think we ever came here on vacation while we lived in Hawaii (two years before moving here). Either way, it had been ages. I had forgotten (or probably never realized as a 9 year old) that Raging Waters is located in the ghetto, but it's not too bad when you get inside. The Waimea Wave H2O rollercoaster is pretty good, until you get to the end and smash your face into the mat you're riding on and get severe whiplash. The slides are good until you plunge into the pool below that has a temperature of approximately 42 degrees Fahrenheit. (Seriously, I've swam in lakes at scout camp warmer than that water). The lifeguards are good, except that they usually pay no attention to you whatsoever. The $21.32 admission charge, however, is not so good. Kind of a ripoff for only a moderate level of fun. (The only pictures I took of raging waters are on my brother's camera, so maybe I'll get a few up someday. None today, I'm afraid.)

Wednesday, 8/19

Today I was pulling out of a parking lot and I totally drilled a dude on a bike. Actually, scratch that: a dude on a bike totally drilled me. I was turning right, so I was looking left to see if any traffic was coming. The next thing I know I hear a BAM! and I look to my right and see a dude on my windshield with his bike up in the air behind him. I obviously wasn't prepared to take a picture of this, but I did take a picture of the actual spot and then drew in what it looked like on my phone:

I don't know if you've ever hit anyone with your car before, but the first thing you think of is, "Holy crap, did I just kill a guy?!". Fortunately, I did not kill a guy. He actually said he was fine. Since my initial reaction was gratitude that he was ok, I didn't immediately realize that this guy was riding on the sidewalk of left side of the road (two places where he 100% shouldn't have been), and it is entirely his fault that I now have three less-than-awesome dents in the side of my car. I should have made him pay for repairs, but by the time I realized it he had long since pedaled away. Oh well.

The day only got worse when I put on my Bad Idea Jeans and decided to watch The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Amy wouldn't agree, but I try not to be too critical of movies (I thoroughly enjoyed the first two Mummies, but they were by no means cinematic masterpieces), but sometimes they are so bad I can't help it. When a Yeti kicks a bad guy over two upright posts, and his Yeti buddy gives him the "it's good!" field goal sign, I have to draw the line.

Scott brought Wii Sports Resort down with him and we played that a lot this week. When I first saw it I thought it looked a bit dorky (the sports don't seem super fun), but it's actually really awesome! Swordfighting, archery, and plane flying were some of our favorites, but the best was easily Frisbee Golf! (or as Andy Bernard would call it, "Frolf"). We played tons of it this week, and were up until 1:00 AM playing it Wednesday. Here's a blurry shot of Me, Scott, and Reagan on the Frolf Course.

Also, Wednesday, before I left, I had a battle with the biggest spider ever! It was a monster, but I came out victorious (This one's for you, Aaron!)

Thursday, 8/20

Today my dad took us to Pat's In Your Face B.B.Q., a little hole-in-the-wall BBQ joint just off of 21st South. These guys know how to BBQ! It was incredible. If you want a great BBQ place with good atmosphere, I definitely recommend Pat's. It was even featured on the Food Network's Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives show.

From there we went to Temple Square and walked around. I talked to a sister missionary from Britain and discovered that she is the sister of the Bishop from my first ward on my mission. That was kind of neat. After that we went and walked around memory grove, which is also kind of neat. I don't think I'd ever been there before.

Friday, 8/21

Today we went to the Cottonwood Heights Rec Center to go swimming. That's a pretty fun pool, but there was approximately 4 billion people there. I jumped off the 25 foot platform, but I didn't bring my camera, so I have no photo documentation of my bravery. From there I had to say goodbye to Scott, Reagan, Maddie, and Ben, because we were going out with my friends and they were leaving early Saturday morning. It was great hanging out with them all week. I hate that they live so far away!

Once a month me and some friends get together for dinner and games, but tonight we decided to hit the Drive-In instead of playing games. All of the movie pairings sucked, so we put two cars at G.I. Joe and two at the screen that would be showing Harry Potter later. So we watched G.I. Joe (which was awesome! Much better than The Mummy 3!), and then walked across the Drive-In to see Harry Potter again (I think we'd all seen it at least once, but nothing else good was playing). Everyone had a good time, especially when I blinded them with a flash in the middle of Harry Potter. I thought of it as a Lumos spell...

Also, the Snack Bar will be closing in 10 minutes. Pizza.

The rest of the Weekend

This morning we went up Millcreek Canyon to have breakfast with Amy's family, a yearly tradition. It was very delicious. Didn't really do anything else during the day. I'm writing the blog now, and then we'll watch Braves and eat pizza for the rest of the night. Nothing planned for Sunday other than family dinner, and then school starts again on Monday. How am I ever going to get up for a 7:30 AM class?

Kinda Creepy...

A co-worker of Amy's found this picture on Getty Images. Does it, er, look like anyone you know?


Weird...

Un-Grrrrr!

I fixed my blog! I found a template that works, but more importantly, I fixed the comments!! So now you can all comment!! All 3 of you! I think I've finally got it looking how I want it. What do you think?

Grrrrr

I was really excited about this last night, but now I'm just frustrated. My comments don't work, and I can't figure out how to fix it. I thought maybe it was something to do with my template, so I changed it, but that didn't help. Because of that, I lost all the formatting on the old one that I set up last night. So now it looks worse and comments still don't work. I can't just find a nice, basic, easy template with a title on the top and then a picture and then the blog. Ridiculous.

I just lost my VB. Lindsay owes me a Zuka Juice.

Well, here it is! My first ever blog. Well, actually, it's my second blog ever; I had one before this about how my blog was under construction (it even had one of those "under construction" signs that were cool on web sites 10 years ago), but I deleted it. I'm pretty sure nobody saw it, because nobody knew this was here. I suppose my blog is still under construction; it took me a while to get it how I wanted it, and I'm still not sure how much I like the way it looks. I'm open to suggestions. I pretty much just ripped off my pal Aaron's template, because his is oozing with awesome.

So why did I make a blog? Well, pretty much because it's the best-named blog on the internet. Seriously, think about it. (If you don't get it, I put up the applicable definitions of the word "maw" for you. Look right under the picture of me playing baseball with me.) And the best part is that it's only a cool title if it's my blog. If you called your blog Sam's Maw, it wouldn't make any sense. But for me you're like, "oh, it's his name, and it's a play on words! Gosh he's clever. And attractive." So when the best-named blog on the internet popped into my head, I kind of felt obligated to eventually get around to making it. And I finally have!

So... er... what am I supposed to write about?