Here is another mission photo.  I was with James Nickerson in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, as missionaries, and he took this picture of me.  We were contacting people in an apartment building, and thought the view was pretty good.

I thought I would share this picture of me as a missionary in Romania. This picture was taken in a little town called Campia Turzu in Transylvania.

From Mission

Here I am about 58% the way through the year 2008. As I’ve been thinking about blogging, and what I like to read in other’s blog posts, I’m beginning to think that my blog here is a little boring. I apologize.
So I’m going to make a New Year’s blogging resolution for the last 42% of the year, that I will hopefully make my blog more interesting. That means more personal posts, more photos, and maybe a video from time to time. Who knows, I might even start drawing pictures.

To get started, I thought I would share this photo that I took in Rocky Mountain National Park.

In other news, my parents are coming to visit Colorado next week and I should have some fun with them taking pictures and seeing new things.

I was walking through the student center of BYU the other day, and I noticed that they had some of their Christmas decorations up already. This happened more than 50 days before Christmas! It used to be that the Christmas season started with Thanksgiving, but apparently this year it is starting with Halloween. I’ve even seen Christmas merchandise appear in some stores already too.

I’m excited to share that Google Maps has expanded its street views to include Portland, Oregon. Google announced the addition recently on its LatLong blog. Portland is such an interesting city, I’m excited that people can explore all the many many miles of street view photos available. You can see the Portland LDS Institute Building, where I took classes last fall, or the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.

Please have lots of fun exploring Portland, Oregon.

On the Fourth of July, I intended to wake up early, but I didn’t set an alarm. How fortunate then, that I had another type of alarm, something unusual, and perhaps even something magical.

In my sleep, I heard noises, but I didn’t readily recognize them–they weren’t a lawn mower or a garbage truck. Then, as I was waking, I realized that they were from the burner of a hot air balloon. I jumped out of bed, only to see my apartment building being buzzed by a such a balloon, and the sky all around me being filled with various hot air balloons, flying as part of Provo’s freedom festival.

Today I thought that I would try some mountain biking on Squaw Peak, a few minutes from where I live. I have to admit, that I wasn’t ready for the challenge, but thats ok, because the more I work at it, the better I’ll get over the summer.

A couple of weeks ago, my family and I visited Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah. One of the things we visited was the North Visitor’s Center. The basement of the visitor’s center features displays about various biblical and latter-day prophets. Their displays are pretty good. Below you will see a photo of me and a display about Isaiah. I was trying to get Isaiah to sign an autograph book, but he just wasn’t interested in moving.

Seven years ago during my freshman year at BYU, I lived in the dorms in V-Hall. Recently, V and W halls have been torn down. I stopped by the site yesterday to see what was left. I’m not sure if I’m happy or sad to see it go. Maybe a little of both.

A few weeks ago I talked about a box truck crashing into an awning at BYU. As an update to that post, I’m posting the photo of the damage. I’ve also seen the awning a little bit ago, and I’ve come to the conclusion that yes, they should bother to fix it up. I think maybe they should also tell their drivers not to crash into things anymore.