For Your Enjoyment...

Nothing really new to talk about but I went into the Legacy Flight Museum to get in another shift and saw these awesome signs hanging in one of the front rooms. I figured this is funny, given some of the current issues circulating among the media and government so I'll post these pictures I took for you enjoyment:

Who would've thought that reading a sign can get you into so much trouble!?

That's it! I'm going to assume all "warning shots" are considered acts of aggression and force!

I know, sad right? Resorting to pictures of signs when there's nothing to talk about...

Decent Tempura, Among Other Things

Another food update from home... There are three locations I know of, but I do occasionally enjoy getting a bite to eat at Love Love Teriyaki. As deceptive the name of this restaurant sounds, they do serve Japanese food, among many other things like the teriyaki bowls you can EASILY diy at home. I went this time for one of my personal favorite Japanese dishes that I CANNOT do at home due to complexity, the Tempura prawn shrimp (I think I'm starting to go on a shrimp-binge!) and vegetables and I think it's fair to say these guys do a good job with it:

Shrimp prawns, potatoes, sweet potatoes, broccoli, onions, carrots, all coated in Tempura batter to be dipped in sauce. Pathway to my heart!

I remember my family did Tempura once a few years ago and I remember it being a pain in the butt. Better to let someone else do it. For me, Tempura and Sushi are the only Japanese dishes (I'm sure there are others...) that seem hard to do it yourself and the only ideal way to get 'em is at restaurants.

The Second Best Fish 'n Chips in Town

I've GOT to be careful in how I present this one... I mentioned last year my number one place to get fish 'n chips is The Brick Bar & Broiler. Well, while home I got to go back to my parents "favorite" place for fish 'n chips, the Southside Speakeasy/Dance Club/Showbar. And before you ask, yes, I went with someone, namely my dad; I dare not go there alone!!! Here's where I gotta be careful about explaining this: it's a place where people with the attraction for the same gender can congregate without feeling out of place, but all are welcome to dine, so long as you're over the legal age.

(If you still don't know what this place is all about, you need to pay more attention to some of the current events and issues being settled/disputed in our country's political system...)

Anyways, my dad claims this place as the place where you can get the best fish 'n chips in town. I beg to differ... But there are always other options besides fish. I got shrimp instead; ever since I was in Idaho for the last few months, I kinda got back into eating shrimp.

Couldn't go wrong with shrimp & tots.

And my dad, well he likes the fish 'n chips here.

Typical bar & grill setting food-wise and it's not bad at all; I've eaten here several times and now I'm just getting around to blog about it...

Home is Where New Beginnings Begin

Sorry about the cheesy titles; this hasn't been my most creative blog since I stopped with the ranting and stopped being critical about practically everything. I tend to save any creativity I can muster for my love of aviation, not to mention my aviation blog. Anyways, I spent all day yesterday driving home. After checking out of my apartment on Friday, I drove up to Ashton to spend the night at my uncle's home; I would drive home from there after getting an early start. I technically made the trip in under 12 hours (11 hours and 30 minutes to be exact), and that's my record; in the past this drive was longer and that's because you had to factor in multiple people and multiple stops for food and bathroom breaks and so on. When you're alone, you stop only when you need to, otherwise you just keep going. But that doesn't change the fact the drive was a lonely one. And there was a slight back-up in traffic towards the end of the trip due to construction, those dogs! That's the only factor that threw off my time. Other than that, it's just nice to be home. These furballs were especially happy to see me:

Hemingway, my "little buddy." Actually, he's fat as Garfield.

"Garfield" Hemingway with Heidi, my little old-lady and she is literally old; we've had her for a long time!

And this is Miko; she doesn't take flattering photos... We've had her just about as long as we've had Heidi... She's getting up there in age as well.

Aside from family, these three furballs are also a sight of home for me.

Another Winter Semester in the Books!

I took my last final exam for the Winter 2014 semester today and needless to say, this semester was hell! I had a rough start in January and even though things smoothed out as time went on, it was a few of my classes that kept me on my toes, but if there's a silver-lining to that, it's that it stretched my learning and thoughts beyond a few limits. I never said I was good at this "college stuff," at least not just yet... But I'm proud to say I finished the semester strong with final grades being one B and the rest A's; I must have done SOMETHING right. Well, to celebrate, I ate the following at my favorite in-land Japanese/Asian-fusion restaurant here in Rexburg, Da Pineapple Grill:

Yep, you guessed it: Sushi. And I just needed a light lunch today as well.

The plan now is to check out of my apartment for the semester tomorrow and drive home for a couple of days soon after; to be honest, I've been more homesick than usual and kind of longing for home since coming back out here so it'll be good to be home for a few days... I think that's the case because of what happened among our family last year when we had to cope with the deaths of my uncle (in which a year has already passed since) and more recently, my grandmother... The only reason I can think of regarding why this year has been tougher for me than usual is because I've started holding onto my family relationships a lot tighter in the wake of last year's events; I'm just a little bit more emotional about family and it's just a little bit tougher for me now being away from home. Other than that, I'm at a loss of words as to the "why." But I suppose what I'm feeling is natural. But I had fun this past semester as well because I got to spend time good friends:

Friends, roommates, former roommates, friends of roommates, it's just nice to have friends, new and old.

And this being Winter Semester, the weather wasn't so bad because this winter was pretty mild by my standards and I usually gauge that by how much "winter" driving time I got in; we got quite a few good days that were cold but no snow. The only thing that threw me off was snow on April Fools Day, which mind you is AFTER the first official day of spring:

Cruelest April Fools joke ever! But then again, Mother Nature was always a cruel and sadistic *****...

Well, I got another semester on my belt and it's time to push forward. But first, it'll be a well deserved week off.

The Great Utah(rd) Getaway

This past weekend, I drove down to Utah for several reasons. I stayed with my aunt in West Jordan in the Salt Lake-area while there, which is always nice; having family around to spend time with and have them take me in has always been a benefit. Anyways, the main reason why I spent this weekend in particular in Utah is because of a mission reunion being held in Provo with my former mission president. It was a nice little road trip and even though I'm not fond of how congested Utah has become, I got to do quite a few things after making the drive on Thursday afternoon after I got out of class. Also, Utah's Interstate speed limit went up from 75 mph to 80 mph:

80 miles per hour baby! In aviation, they call that "Balls to the walls!" 

First and foremost on Friday, I went to Provo for the mission reunion. My youngest sister also goes to school at Brigham Young University (the school I initially wanted to go to but got rejected!) located in Provo so I took the opportunity to spend "quality sibling time" with her as well. She was even gracious enough to accompany me as my guest at the mission reunion; she was I guess you can call my photographer at the mission reunion because I forgot to bring my camera! Nevertheless, I'm glad I got to share the moments at the mission reunion with my sister as well! We just had a good time enjoying each others' company and just catching up with the goings-on in our lives...

Sibling rivalry love!

The mission reunion was great too, but you can read about it on my other blog via the link I posted above. After the mission reunion, I parted ways and drove back up to the Salt Lake-area and spent the remainder of the weekend with my aunt. She accepted an offer in selling her house and was in the process of moving out so to her benefit, and as my way of repaying her for giving me a place to stay, I helped her out, especially with a lot of the heavy lifting. At one point, we had to drive out to a landfill to discard a few things you can't just dispose of in the regular trash due to environmental reasons and I kid you not, we saw THIS there:

23 1/2 miles per hour?! Who decided on that?!?!

What else did I do? Well, I can't go to Utah without eating Crown Burgers, right?

Regular ol' Crown Burger with pastrami and fries... And LOTS AND LOTS of Fry Sauce!

I also did some off-airport planespotting from my aunt's backyard as well. But you can read about that on my aviation blog. Speaking of my aviation blog, its pageviews surpassed this blog, not that you read any of these things... I think it's because of more frequent content updates on there from my time spent volunteering at the Legacy Flight Museum and whatnot. But most of the actual weekend was spent helping my aunt and I was happy to help out in any way. Aside from Crown Burger, we got to eat out a couple times as well and I even got back into fried shrimp:

Sizzler's fried shrimp and sweet potato fries

Sunday afternoon was when I drove back up to Rexburg. It was nice to get away but as I mentioned earlier, Utah is congested, especially in the urban areas. It's no surprise because the abundant Latter-day Saints population is mostly responsible for the congestion. In fact, I read somewhere that Utah was the only state in the entire country that was growing in population while the rest of the other 49 states was on the decline. But don't quote me on that! And even though part of me would've liked to stay, I still have another week of school; it's the last one for the semester before the week break between semesters. Better to finish strong.

A Good Burger at The Hickory

This turned out to be a weird Tuesday. After class, I got a call from uncle asking if I could help my cousin and her husband move their belongings down to Rigby from Rexburg. Since I was done with classes for the day and had nothing else in my schedule, I figured I could help out. From one apartment to another, it was a pretty easy move. Afterwards, we got some lunch and got it at a place called the Hickory in Rexburg; yet ANOTHER good restaurant with good food in a Podunk town like Rexburg! This is what I had:

A bacon cheeseburger with a really good barbecue sauce! 

Needless to say, I think I found another good place I think I might wanna come back to. Now the question is, how come I haven't even heard of these great places to eat??? Seriously, I never hear of this place until I went and I have a car for school this year and I've been around town quite a bit up until this point!