Regina Spektor Concert

Last Friday Connie and I went to a Regina Spektor Concert with some friends. Connie and I found out about Regina about a year ago via pandora.com. We have enjoyed her music since then and when we found out she was coming to town we were excited to attend.
The venue for the concert was frankly terrible (terrible audio, standing room only), but the concert was awesome. What we like about Regina is her diversity and depth of talent. So for all you viewing pleasure, I have duplicated the concert here, with the songs in the order that she played them.

She start out with a fun song, called "The Calculation":


She then followed that with one of my favorite songs of hers, "Eet":



Next up was "Folding Chair" was illustrates the quirkness that makes her fun to listen to:



The moving "Ode to Divorce" brought out Regina's serious side.



"The machine" is a weird and awesome song about the future:



Next up was "Laughing with", a thought provoking song about God:



Next up was "One more time with feeling" which I hadn't heard before:



This was followed by the haunting "Blue Lips", which I believe is based on some her experiences as a Jewish family immigrating from Russia:



One of my favorites, "On The Radio" was next:



Next up was the peppy turning to sad song "Dance Anthem of the 80s":



This was followed by the accapella "Silly eye color generalization":



"That Time" is a song about remembering the weird and sometimes foolish things of youth:



"Apres Moi" is a strong and moving song with a long bit in russian:



"Poor Little Rich Boy" was interesting because Regina used a chair as drum and that was pretty cool (WARNING: Explicit lyrics)



After this Regina said it was here last song and left the stage. Then everyone cheered and cheered until she came back on. I have to be honest, the encore seemed pretty staged, but we didn't mind because she came back and sang some of our favorite songs.

The encore started with "The man of 1000 faces":



Then came a Regina classic "Samson":



Next was another Regina classic "US" (also one of my favorites):



This followed by yet another favorite classic "Fidelity":


Well, this brings us to the end of the concert, I hope you enjoyed it!

Knee Surgery

Looking through my exercise logs I first started having problems with my left knee around the first of April 2008. At the time my knee got swollen and was locking up and so I went to a doctor. went easy on it for about a month until the swelling went down. I didn't have any more major problems with it until October when I started try to run more. Then it started to get really sore so I went to a doctor took a day or two off until it felt a little better. Then I tried running some more. It started to get really sore and hurting so I went to a doctor but I just kept running anyway until it was so sore I could barely walk. Then I went to a doctor took a month or so off to see if it would get better. It did not get better so I went to a doctor decided to try to some weight training to help strengthen my knees. After a few months it did start to get better, though I could not run up stairs or jump at all. Around March I started riding my bike to work again and it felt good enough that I ran a triathlon. It didn't feel too bad after that but I still couldn't jump on it or run on it without it hurting, so I mostly just road my bike.
It had been feeling pretty good and then in June while on the pioneer trek with the youth in our stake I was doing a tug of war and was pulling really hard and felt it slip a little bit and it got sore again and I was hobbling the rest of trek. At the point I finally decided I should go to a doctor because I as tired of always having to be super careful with my knee.
I went to a sports medicine doctor and he told me I probably had a torn meniscus. He referred me to a orthopedic surgeon and said I would need knee surgery. I had a choice to do an MRI but both the sports medicine doctor and the surgeon said it would be a waste of money because if they found something they would have to do surgery anyway and if they didn't find anything in the MRI they would have to do surgery to figure out what was wrong. I was convinced, so scheduled a surgery for the end of summer, after some of our planned vacations would be over.

The surgeon explained to me that if I had a torn meniscus that he would cut the torn part out and that I would be able to walk the same day and that in a month I could run, ride my bike, or do whatever I wanted. It was several weeks between when I first met with the surgeon and when I actually had the surgery. By the time the surgery was coming around my knee was actually starting to feel pretty good (though I still couldn't run or jump without pain) and I wondered if I was just being a pansy and was just wasting a lot of money. I asked the surgeon if he ever got into someone's knee and found nothing wrong. He said that rarely happened with people with my symptoms, so I decided to go ahead with the surgery.

Well it turns out that when he got into my knee, my meniscus wasn't torn. It was much worse. A large part of it was shattered and delaminated (detached from the bone). If you look at the picture at the top, the whole thing is supposed to be white. The pinkish and red parts are bone that is supposed to be covered by cartilage. So the surgeon performed what is called a micro fracture. Basically what he did was take a small awl and poke a bunch of whole into my bone where the cartilage is supposed to be. The holes are made deep enough that the bone bleeds and bone marrow seeps out. Then what is supposed to happen is that over the course of the next year or so, a scab forms which then hardens into scar tissue which has some cartilage in in it which acts as a new meniscus. Because the scab takes a while to harden, I have been on crutches for a month so as not to break it while it is soft and I am just now starting to put weight on my left knee and trying to walk on it. I am making good progress and am starting to ride a stationary bike and improve my usable range of motion. I don't know if I had gone to a doctor sooner if the surgery would have gone differently, but I do know if I had I would be done with the very unfun process of rehabilitation.

Upside down vacations

This summer we traveled all over the west. I tried to take pictures of me doing headstands and handstands where ever we went.

Bryce Canyon

From handstands

Mossy Cave (new Bryce)

From handstands

Pioneer Trek, Wyoming

From handstands

Orderville Canyon, Zion's, Utah

From handstands

Horsetail Falls, Oregon

From handstands

From handstands

Columbia River Gorge, Oregon

From handstands

From handstands

Cannon Beach, Oregon

From handstands

Shosone Falls, Idaho

From handstands

Eating cheese while standing on my head
Home (Click to watch video)

From handstands

Oregon Trip

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Bryce Canyon

Earlier this year we went to Bryce Canyon. It rained most the time and was quite cold, but we still had a good time.

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4th of July Children's Parade

They have a children's parade and a big party on the 4th of July in the park by our house. Here are some pictures:

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Flow Rider

As part of Connie and I's mini vacation we went to an indoor surfing place. It took a little bit to get the hang of it, but we both got where we could stay up pretty well.

From FlowRider

From FlowRider

Some action footage. Click to play movie.

From FlowRider

From FlowRider

Orderville Canyon

Connie and I went with our friends Jamie and Lehi to hike Orderville Canyon. It is a 10 mile slot canyon with multiple small waterfalls to descend and lots of walking in the water. It was awesome.
Normally to do the whole canyon you have to have two cars. You drop one off at the bottom and drive one to the top. We only had one car and so were going to try to find someone else doing the hike who we could work out a shuttle with. While I was getting the backcountry permit, I met a guy named Robert Hansen who was getting a permit for a hike the next day and who offered to give us a ride. He went totally out of his way driving us for an hour and over some tough dirt roads to get us to the top. It was one of the nicest things a stranger has every done for me. He acted like it was no big deal said he had the day off anyway. If you are ever in St. George and need some body work done on your car, go to Hansen's Body Shop and give that good man your business.

We also ran into some BYU students. One of them broke their ankle and we were able to help them to down the canyon using our ropes. They were amazing, the carried her out of the canyon throw many waterfalls and obstacles and kept up with us even though we were just carrying ourselves

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Sammy's First T-Ball Game

Sammy had his first T-Ball game on Monday. He did well. He had some good solid hits and fielded a few balls. He was one of the few who realized that you don't have to chase the ball if your on the team that is at bat.




Sam and his dad discuss strategy pre-game

Covering first base
Snagging a ball
Bringing it home
Waiting for the hit
Giving it the old college try

Pictures of our house!

We finally took some pictures of our new house. We love this house. The picture cannot do it justice. They also cannot portray what a great location this house is in. We can walk to the grocery store, the library, the church, the elementary school and several different parks. The neighbors are really nice. We feel very blessed and grateful to have found this house.

View from the front. Notice the proximity to the mountains. It is less than a mile to a trailhead for multiple mountain bike/hiking trails.


Front Porch


Walking in the front door you can see the loft, front room, and dining area.


The Loft. We are using this as our TV, kids play area.


Sam's Room is huge, but it does have a sloping ceiling which makes it good for a kids room, but not so good for a room for adults.


Gracie's Room


View from Gracie's Room. This picture does not do it justice.


Upstairs Bathroom


Front Room. Check out the old school wood fireplace.


Dining Area. We love the bay window that looks into the backyard. Originally this area was carpeted for some reason. We changed that immediately upon moving in.


Kitchen


Laundry Room



Master Bedroom


Master Closet


Master Bath

The Garage. We love finally having a garage. No more scraping window in the winter and no more getting bikes stolen.


Backyard (as seen from Gracie's window)



Basement bike riding area and storage areas


Basement play area, parkour area. We are planning to put some monkey bars and a slide in this area.

A return to Tri-ing

Last Saturday I did my first triathlon in years. The last time I did a triathlon was when I was 18 and did an Olympic distance triathlon (1500m swim, 25 mile bike, 10k run) in the Utah Summer Games. In the time since then I have done a few 5k and 10ks, a couple of century bike rides, and gone swimming for fun , but never another triathlon.

Then a few months ago my first college roommate Eric, who I had recently gotten back in touch with via facebook, asked if I would be interested in doing a sprint triathlon (400 yard swim, 10 mile bike, 5k run) in St. George. Eric had also done that same Olympic distance triathlon years ago. At that time we had been fairly evenly matched athletically, but I had no idea how closely matched we would be now and I thought it would be fun to find out. So I decided now would be as good as time as any to try to start to do some triathlons.

So then I engaged in a rigorous triathlon training program. Or maybe not. Actually instead Connie and I decided to move and I spent my time doing remodeling and looking at houses. My weight reached an all time high of 218 and I did little to no formal training. Fortunately, in the two weeks before the triathlon I did manage to ride my bike to work a few times so I did at least get my legs back into the mode of doing some exercise.

Despite my almost complete lack of training, I decided I still wanted to try to do the triathlon. So friday night I drove down to St. George and meet Eric and we scoped out the biking and running courses. It was a nice course with gentle hills and smooth pavement that I was glad to see wouldn't overtax me too much. The swimming was going to be done in a pool where you would wait in line until a lane opened up and then swim 16 lengths of the pool. There were several hundred people doing the triathlon, so some people had to wait hours to start. Fortunately for me, they decided to order the line alphabetically so I only had to wait about 10 minutes.

Saturday morning I woke up and was actually pretty excited to start the race. Because I had very low expectations and wasn't really nervous about doing well, it let me concentrate on just having fun. I actually ended up doing alright considering my level of non preparation. I was breathing pretty hard the whole time and was pretty tired by the end, but I never felt in distress or like I wasn't going to finish. My final time was 1 hour 20 minutes and 30 seconds, which broken into splits was:

Swim(400 yards): 7:55
Transition 1: 3:49
Bike(10 miles): 36:37
Transition 2: 2:17
Run(5k): 29:51
Total: 1:20:30

Eric, who actually did at least some training, beat me soundly and finished in just over 1:06. That is okay though, it gives me motivation. St. George holds another triathlon on the exact same course at Thanksgiving. I think that I will do that one and see how much time I can drop. I think I can drop at least 6-7 minutes off the bike and 5-6 minutes off the run by that time and finish under 1:10. And then maybe next year I will give Eric a run for his money.

Waiting in line to swim

Eric flying on his bike

We sold our old house + a cool picture

We found a buyer for our house less than 24 hours after we put it on the market. Yeah! only one mortgage for us! We wanted to keep our house cleaning while our house was being shown so we went to visit my mom and my sister and her husband who were visiting from Wyoming. My sister took this great picture of me and Sam:

We bought a new house and are moving

More details later

Strong Sam

We were doing some parkour challenges in Sam's room, when he busted out a cartwheel onto his bed and held the handstand position and walked on his hands across his bed. He is amazing!



Then later he jumped a 6 foot gap:


Then he did a L-sit with daddy:

We Will All Miss Sparky

Our faithful cat of 14 years (that's right, I Connie, got her in Junior High) passed away this last week due to incidents of old age.... As a family we decided to hold a little memorial her for her where we drew pictures of our favorite memories of Sparky. Here's a recap:

Kevin- I liked how Sparky would watch me eat my cereal every morning and wait for me to give her the left over milk.

Connie- I like how Sparky would try to lay on my face every night. I hated her laying on my face, but atleast she was consistant. I liked how whenever I sat down she would climb on my lap and wait for me to scratch her ears.

Sam- I'll miss when Sparky would snuggle with me and let me carry her. I liked her soft fur and the sound of her purr.

Grace- I'll miss chasing the kitty all around the house. I'll miss how she wouldn't get too mad when I pulled her tail.