Carnies and B Ball in the Hood

I think I made mention of the fact Carissa and I have been playing tennis lately. Well, I have been playing and Carissa has been watching tennis balls blow by her. :) Well when we went and bought my tennis racket, she REALLY wanted to buy a basketball. Now if you know me at all, you know the only basketball in my life is when I watch it, NOT actually playing it. I tend to think when I play basketball I look like this:

Now I know I don't actually look like this, but I definitely do feel like it, minus the Lakers jersey of course. If I were wearing one of those, I promise we wouldn't be living in the bustling metropolis of Williston North Dakota. Long story short, Carissa wanted to buy a basketball, and even though we've only been married a year, I do know, that a happy wife means a happy husband, so I gave in and bought a basketball.

Next little hurdle Carissa had to overcome was actually getting me to go to the park and play. I usually tend to go to the park to let the dogs play, not me. Even though I shaved my mustache the government still won't me go within 500 feet of a playground, (that's a joke, obviously) so it's hard to get me to a playground. Well, she finally convinced me, and we decided to go play a little game of "horse." I really wanted to play "turtle" instead, because that is her favorite animal, but she insisted we play "horse," I think it was because she wanted to call me a "ho," so once again, I gave in. We actually had a lot of fun, and the dogs were loving it. Rozzi is a complete spazz and she would chase us around and actually bite our butts. I tried to get a pic of all the slobber on Carissa's butt, and if you look close on the one pic from behind you can see it. It was quite hilarious.

Carissa and I had never gone to play ball together, but I should know by now, that whenever she wants to play a sport we haven't played before, she usually whoops me. That turned out to be the case in the first game we played. I think she had an H, and I was the HORSE. So being the guy that HATES to lose, we decided to play best of three. Luckily, for my ego, and for the sake that Carissa might actually get me to go play again, I won the next two games. It was pretty fun, and the best part was it was still light out and it was 1030 at night. One of the best things about Williston is that we are in the Central Time Zone, and right on the border of Montana and the Mountain Time Zone, so it tends to be light really late. It's kind of weird going to bed at 11pm and it still being light enough to not have to turn lights on.

This past week we had the Upper Valley Missouri Fair. The company I'm working for had a booth at the fair, and so I had to be there all 4 days. Needless to say, the fair itself was lame, but the people watching was more than amazing. My friends and acquaintances know that I have the wonderful ability to tease and make a wise crack about every person that I see. It's a blessing and a curse at times, but up here it's definitely a blessing. We tend to laugh at a lot of things. One of them is this guy:

Unfortunately I didn't time the picture right, but if you look close, you can see this guys gut hanging out his shirt. It was a button down shirt, and the buttons stopped about 6 inches from the bottom of his shirt, so whenever the wind would blow, his shirt would fan open and we got to see his belly button and fat gut. It was beyond awesome. The other funny part, is I actually work with this clown, so it was usually when he was talking to his customers, which made it that much more professional and hilarious. 

On the weekend they had the dirt races. I definitely take after my dad, and we love anything that goes fast, especially if it has 4 wheels under it. He and I have gone to numerous races together, NASCAR, Bonneville Salt Flats, Rocky Mountain Raceway, Bonneville Raceway, Miller Motorsports Park, Phoenix, Laguna Seca, Sears Point, just to name a few, so when I found out they had a dirt race track up here, I was more than excited. The racing is pretty fun, because as the name suggests, it's on dirt, and when the cars get going 100+ mph, they slide and fish tail like crazy, so the driver has to feather the gas pedal, and compensate with the steering. It's how most professional racers got their start, and boy oh boy is it exciting. I completely eat it up and just love it. The racetrack up here has a few different rules than the rest of the country, they actually encourage beer drinking, and they allow you to bring in your coolers. So, as you've probably already figured out, the people watching, and the drunken morons entertained us inbetween racing. All in all, it was a great weekend.

Here's a cool pic I snapped of the cars sliding through the turns, I also took a little video. I forgot to mention, since it is dirt racing, you do need to wear safety glasses in the stands due to the dirt being flicked at you from the cars.

Idiots and........ well just idiots.

UPDATE ON DOLIN!!!

So I must make a correction to the post below. Turns out Danielson wasn't such a bad guy afterall. Granted he was high when he was pulled over, and arrested, but it's looking like Dolin shot HIMSELF and made the story up. He just happened to randomly pick a truck (Danielsons) that had driven by him and gave that discription to the police. Sounds like Dolin needs to read his own book when it comes out. Maybe he should retitle it, "Kindness in America: How to ruin not only your life, but accuse another of attmepted murder and get away with it."

Seriously. On a brighter note, The Vegan missed out on some good stuff this morning at work. A suicide with entry and exit wounds, and also a lady was high and drove her car into a ditch. She was ejected and broke her back in a few places, leaving her paralyzed. Oh and as you've probably already guessed, she wasn't wearing a seatbelt, because those don't save lives when you're invincible and high.

Chicken Shiz and Beers!!

Okay, this is Tanner posting. I'll promise to keep the language clean this week. Here are a few stories that have all happened since Monday (two days ago).

So the other day I was driving down one of the dirt roads close to our house and I came across this scene. As for the 150 feet leading up to the truck, everything that was once in his truck, was thrown all over the road and into the weeds. It should go without saying there was more than one beer can on the side of the road.

On Monday a gentleman by the name of Dolin, who just so happens to be writing a book about "Kindness in America" was hitch hiking cross country and telling about his experiences. He was sitting on his pack on the side of the road, eating his lunch, when a man by the last name of Danielson pulled up in his truck. Dolin thought was going to offer him a ride, and stood up and started walking towards the truck. As Dolin walked up to his truck, Danielson pulled out a gun and shot him. Apparently for no reason. Just for the sake of wanting to shoot someone. Luckily, for Dolins sake, he lived, and was able to give a pretty good description of the man and the truck he was driving. Four hours later, they found Danielson drunk and arrested him.

The next story is a doozy. So Carissa came home from work the other night and told me about a kid who came into the emergency room with a broken foot. How did he break his foot you might ask? His brother broke it..................... In the supermarket................... After they got in an argument over who could drink the most beer in one sitting................ In the supermarket.................So try and wrap your mind around that for a second. Two brothers get into a little "he said, she said" disagreement and it somehow ends up with the two of them ON THE GROUND WRESTLING in the aisle of the supermarket, as one of them grabs the others ankle, and starts to twist it saying "admit I can drink mo' beer o' I'm gunna break yer ankle," mean while the other is yelling "don't yew do it, don't yew do it! You can't drink more than me!" and then the brother snaps it.

It kind of reminds me of the scene in Talledega Nights when the frenchman Jean Girard wants to break Ricky Bobbys arm because he won't admit crepes are better than pancakes.

Okay and the last story happened last night. Carissa came home and was telling me about a guy who had been stabbed in the throat. Turns out Billy Bob (I made the name up for the sake of the story. Keep reading and you'll realize it's probably a pretty good assumption on my part) had a little secret he had been hiding for over 35 years. He liked to wear womens underwear. His little secret had gotten out in the man camp he was living in. So in order to put an end to it, he decided to take his own life. The way he thought best to do so, was apparently stabbing himself in the throat. So ol' Billy Bob got a little bit of liquid courage (booze) in him, mixed with the 3 previous days worth of meth, and went about stabbing himself in the trachea. Only problem was, he became a "Chicken Sh*@" about halfway through trying to take his life and he backed out. Now I didn't make that phrase up. That was what he kept calling himself as Carissa and the rest of the ER crew were trying to attend to him.

As you guys can see, we keep very entertained up here. Carissa said almost every single patient they see, the person or persons are completely hammered drunk.

With the exception of the guy who crashed his motorcycle without a helmet last night, (I guess I can't say he was without a helmet, he had one, it was strapped to his backseat and he wasn't wearing it) most of them are drunk or high, or a pretty good mix of both.

All in all, we both actually like it up here. The non oil workers up here are some of the nicest and most genuine people we have ever met, and I'm sure some of the oil workers are as well. The one thing we are certain of we definitely won't be short on entertainment while we are here.

Sakakawea and Rhubarb

For my first full day off in 9 days, Tanner suggested we explore something outside Williston.  Genius.  So we drove out to Lake Sakakawea - near Lewis and Clark State Park.  Once we got outside of the town limits, it was actually quite beautiful.  Lots of rolling hills and everything was really green.  Both of us were a bit surprised at how lovely it was :)  We didn't go into the State Park - we'll save that for another trip when we can camp and do some of the hikes they have out there.  But we drove around and found a place to drive down onto the beach.  We parked and let out two VERY excited dogs!  Oh my goodness they were in heaven!  The first time we took Rozzi to any water, she was very leery and wouldn't get in deep enough to let it touch her undercarriage.  The second time - at Sugarhouse Park - she was a bit older and a bit braver, but still wouldn't swim.  This time she got all the way in and was chasing sticks and balls but mostly just messing with Samson.  I don't think she cares so much about getting whatever object is being thrown - just that she gets there before Samson.  Because then she usually just drops whatever it was anyway.  She's funny.  And she runs so funny.  Especially in water.  Leaping and bounding like a very bouncy worm or something.  Hard to describe.  Oh - I think I have a video from Sugarhouse park of her.  I do...

So ya - that is how she runs.  It's awesome.  So in the pictures of what actually happened today - you can just picture her spazziness.  We both though it was going to be a little chilly - it POURED like a mo last night!  (Side note: apparently there were flash flood warnings and little tornadoes that happened last night around here.  I woke up in the middle of the night to get rid of some of the water I had downed at work...and couldn't go back to sleep for a bit because it was torrential bucketfuls of down-pouring rain.  And we have a skylight in our bathroom - boo yeah - be jealous - so there was crazy flashing lightning like mad.  It was super cool and I regret that I was so tired and didn't get up to watch the pandemonium.)  Anyway - so it was still cool and overcast and threatening of more rain today...but it turned out to be perfect.  The sun showed itself and it was so fun being in some nature!  The dogs have been passed out ever since.

Monster Rozzi Fozzi-bear paw prints! She's getting HUGE!

And of course, every time they did this it was right next to us where they had dropped the ball or stick.  We were as wet as them...

Love this one of Sams

Kinda blurry but it captures her being a pest

 Worlds Greatest Dog! Don't tell Rozzi

 (we all know parents have favorites)

Sorry - lots of dog pictures.  But they are our kids and they are awesome and we love them :)

In other news - there's not much.  Barely saw Tanner this week because I've been doing 3-11 so he comes home when I'm gone and is usually in bed when I get home.  So it was very nice to have today.  A guy from work, Dr. Brunsman, brought in some rhubarb for me the other day.  I was soooo excited to make my Aunt Julie's rhubarb crisp.  But 4 nights ago, I realized I needed to enter sugar detox, since I've been eating dessert like a crazy person, so I committed to myself and Tanner that I wasn't going to eat any desserty sugary stuff till our family vacation in July.  The next day I remembered all the rhubarb.  Dang.  So I went to my cookbooks and the internet and have found oodles of non-dessert recipes.  First I made a orange, apple, mango, rhubarb sauce - it's been awesome on quinoa, squash, french toast and I'm sure anything else I try it on.  Oh so good.  Then I made some rhubarb bread...also amazing.  And today I made a chilled strawberry rhubarb soup.  That will be a refreshing lunch after church tomorrow.  And then I found a recipe for a rhubarb lentil soup that sounds savory and tart and awesome.  Oh my gosh I'm obsessed right now.  I can't get enough of it's smell and taste and flavor and tartness and goodness.  I think the CEO of our hospital is gonna bring some more in for me on Monday.  What else shall I make???  It's quite a shame Tanner doesn't even like it!

Popcorn Farts

It was another busy working weekend.  I'm hoping the more I work the quicker I'll get comfortable with this whole business of ER medicine.  That's most likely the case.  Yesterday was a fun day.  I got to staple and suture and do all sorts of fun stuff.  There were a couple motorcycle accidents and another car accident - 2/3 or those were related to alcohol.  Geniuses.  I think the coolest part of the day was one patient saying he felt more tired than a popcorn fart.  And then not one hour later another patient said that he was thirstier than a popcorn fart.  Can't say I've EVER heard that phrase before.  It made me laugh a lot.  It's pretty exciting being here with people all over the place- lots of fun accents and stories and terms and what not. 

Fortunately we've been able to go to church with all this working - looks like that won't be changing. (That pic obviously was taken during colder times. When I was here for my interview in January.  And it was freezing so it was taken through a dirty windshield, but you get the idea).  I pretty much got my schedule for the next month and probably two months.  Mostly 3-11pm during the week and every third weekend.  Our ward is pretty interesting too.  About 5-15  new people announced on a weekly basis.  It's like 70% male, and about 25% of those people are in jeans and t-shirts, and the occasional pair of shorts.  But it looks and feels just like we are back in a good ol' Utah ward.  We even had a couple people say "aloha!" at the pulpit today.  There are people from EVERYWHERE here!  Last week when we were leaving church - we saw a little dog in the back of a pick up truck get up on the edge of the bed and taking a dump off the side of the truck.  That's a pretty smart dog.  I can guarantee Rozzi would never do that. 

So, we've been trying to get out and be more active, and what not, so Tanner and I decided we should take up tennis. I love to play sports with racquets, and Tanner, well he's another story. At any rate, we went and purchased him a brand new fancy schmancy racquet and have been playing. To be quite honest, he is much better than I thought, and he easily beat me. Oh well. Still lots of fun.

Also, the park we go to is the crown jewel of the parks department up here. It's funny because where else i n the country can you find a park with oil derrick slides, and oil well pump teeter totters? We still wonder what the heck at times, but for better or worse we are slowly getting accustomed to the funny oddities and culture here. Just as long as Tanner doesn't start cussing like the whacko's at WalMart.