Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace - Foo Fighters

It sure has been a while since I made a post. Lots of things have happened, so I'll give a quick update on things. This semester I am taking 6.5 credits (advanced reporting--my capstone class, philosophy 110--my last general and advanced tennis). I am working for BYU TV on the BYU sports show "True Blue" as a reporter and with the BYU Daily News as a sports anchor. You can catch me on True Blue every week on BYU-TV--that is nationwide, channel 21 in Provo or on the Daily News on Thursdays at noon on KBYU channel 11--only in Utah/Idaho. I am in the process of the job search and will probably continue to be so for a while.

I am on three different intramural teams; flag football--the crushers 3-1, soccer--seasiders 4-0, ultimate frisbee--dance dance revolution 2-2. The on e I have had the most fun with is flag football for sure. I am wide reciever and have made three TD catches this season and at least ten receptions. I'm loving it! Most of all, it's making me watch more football and in a different way. Watching the way routes are run and the execution of plays.

Highlights over the last few weeks:

• General Conference; shaking President Uchtodrfs hand
  
• Interviewing Steve Nash and Shaq
• Making two TD catches on back to back drives
• Applying to an entry-level production program with ESPN
• BYU's 6-0 season

Check out byub.org/trueblue to see any stories I have done or you can watch it on Wednesdays on BYU-TV (nationwide) at 4:30pm MST. It also re-airs on BYU-TV on Wednesday at 8:30pm MST, and KBYU (only available in Utah/Idaho) on Thursdays at 10pm and Friday at 11:30. Or you can see it on facebook!!

Waiting on the World to Change - John Mayer

This weekend was by far one of the best weekends of the summer!!! I played two 90 minute, full field soccer games on Friday night. We won both games and I scored three goals! But, they called two of them back cause supposedly they were offsides, however I disagree. The best part of the games were playing with Austinn and Lisa! I haven't played soccer with them in forever!!

Saturday morning I went to the beach with Blair Ord, Jonny Jensen, Emily James, Carlo Bena, Anders Taylor, Meg Gallagher and Erin (Meg's mission companion) and Kristina Hardy. We went to Manresa beach down at Santa Cruz. Before we settled down at the beach we stopped by the village shops in La Selva. Most of us got deli sandwiches, but Anders, Jonny, and Blair all got Chinese food and ate it at the beach! Definitely a first for that to happen! Not a typical beach food.

Jonny, Me, Blair, Emily & Anders--the ones to brave the cold waters!

We braved the cold waters and swam for about a half hour. The weather was beautiful too!! The perfect day for the beach. The rest of the afternoon included whiffle ball, uno, football and just relaxing. Whiffle ball was by far the most fun! The sand was extremely hot, so we had to dig holes for our feet to sink down into the sand so they wouldn't burn when we were in the outfield. This resulted in extreme laziness on the defensive side.


I got home from the beach around 4pm, just in time to shower and head over to Austinn's to meet up with Lisa and Kerry for the John Mayer/Colbie Caillat concert. We hit up CPK for dinner, not a surprise there. The concert was one of the best concerts I have ever been too! Now if you just listen to John Mayer's music that is studio recorded it may not seem all that special. But seriously, seriously you need to check out his live stuff. It is really good, man does he know how to play the guitar. It's sweet seeing him live because he just jams like crazy during his songs. On the way home from the concert we jammed out to music in Lisa's car and had some crazy intense laughs! It was hilarious!

with Kerry, Austinn and Lisa on the grass at shoreline

Sunday I went to church for the last time for about a month. Since I am leaving for China on Saturday I won't be able to go to church until BYU in September. It was sad having that be my last time in the Stanford ward, at least till December when I move back after I graduate from BYU. After church I jammed out on the drums to John Mayer for about an hour. Playing the drums is such a release for me. I love it!! Even though I don't play as much as I would like, when I do play, it's a type of high that is incredible. I love music!

Emily and Anders came over for dinner with my mom and I. We had BBQ rotisserie chicken, rice, salad, fruit, corn on the cob and bread. It was top notch. Followed by root beer floats for dessert, it was solid. Then what would be Sunday without a game night!! Carlo, Meg, Jaren, Joel and Blair joined Anders, Emily and I to play sequence and scattegories. Lots of laughs, competition and fun. All in all this weekend was exhausting but worth the energy!

My Favorite Things - Julie Andrews

Since I've been back home I have become extremely grateful for the following things:

• 2-ply toilet paper
• my own bathroom
• not taking a shower with sandals on
• home cooked meals
• biking and driving places instead of taking the subway (aka no more long commutes!!)
• hanging out with the Palo Alto crowd
• playing soccer 3 times a week
• sleeping in my own bed
• perfect weather
• laying by the pool and getting tan and blond again!!
  

Billy Jean - Michael Jackson

(all photos by: Stephen Montague)

My last night in the city I went with Randi, Stephen, and Vanessa to a french culinary institute restaurant called E'cole. It was a five course meal and I ate: marinated duck breast, macrole with a bean curd sauce, venison with mixed vegetables, a digestive salad and chocolate lemon cake (the picture from above). The whole meal was perfect! We spent nearly three hours at the restaurant enjoying the delicious meal.

When we were finishing up our dessert and getting ready to leave E'cole they started playing the song "Billy Jean" by Michael Jackson. It was really funny because the restaurant was extremely nice and had a romantic feel to it, then out of no where a Michael Jackson song started playing.

After dinner we went to Columbus Circle to have my last photo shoot in the city. Below are a few of the fun pictures Stephen took. I love the city because we took photos from around midnight till 1:30am and the town was still hoppin!! It really is a 24/7 atmosphere.

Saturday in the Park - Chicago

(photo by: Stephen Montague)

On Saturday I spent the majority of the day in Central Park. It was relaxing, we had a blast and it was blistering hot!! Holy cow!! I went to brunch at a restaurant called Good Enough to Eat at 83rd and Amsterdam. I ate some delicious almond strawberry waffles. After brunch, I aimlessly wandered throughout the park with my friend Stephen. We stumbled upon many different sites! One of which was a festival with tons of free drinks and give aways. The free cold drinks hit the spot, especially since it was so dang hot!!

After wandering around a bit more we ran into a BMX Vertical Competition hosted by Red Bull. It was awesome! There were professional BMX and skateboarders there trying to fly as high as they possibly could off a 27 foot vertical quarter pipe! We stayed for about an hour and we were so hot that we had to leave, plus it started to sprinkle a bit so they stopped the competition.




On our way back to the subway stop it started to rain more, but not too much. We were down in the 72nd street subway stop and about two minutes later people were comin down the steps soaking wet! We had just missed the torrential downpour, lucky us you would think, right? Well, we wanted to get wet because it was so dang hot!! So we decided to go outside and walk from 72nd street to 96th street in the pouring rain! I really have never seen it rain that hard in my life! The rain was such a blessing cause not only did it save us from the humid, hot, sticky weather. But that night it was a nice cool 72 degrees when I went to sleep. Ah, sweet bliss...

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!!! Defying Gravity!! Working My Way Back to You!!

As you can see, today's post is three different song titles...Mary Poppins, Wicked and Jersey Boys. My mom came out to visit me for a week and we had a blast! You name it, we did it! I took her to all my favorite spots and we saw 4 broadway shows too!! I planned on us seeing Mary Poppins, bought tickets a few weeks in advance.


The show was incredible! Now I'm sure you're thinking that I say every show was incredible, but this one was great. My favorite part was the dancing and the sets. Bert could tap dance on the rooftops like no other...and Mary? She flew with her umbrella just like expected!!

Before the show we went to Carnegie Deli and split a corned beef sandwich and then split this delicious piece of cheescake for dessert! This is by far the best piece of cheesecake I have EVER had! YUM!!

Friday night came along and we had plans to go to the village, but I thought it would be fun to try and see if we could win the Wicked lottery. Chances were slim, especially on a Friday night. But, we both put our names in and BOTH of our names were pulled!! There were about 300 people there at least, and out of 12 people picked my mom and I both got 2 tickets. Luckily two other BYU interns were trying to get the lottery, so we gave the tickets to them. I still can't believe I got to see Wicked twice while I have been here!!


Saturday we got matinee tickets for Jersey Boys. Yet again, I was blown away. The harmonies and sounds the four lead roles made were incredible. Jersey Boys is a story about Frankie Valli and the Four Season group. The other part of the show I loved was the two drummers. They were excellent!!After the show we went to the financial district and checked out ground zero. It still looked the same way when I came here during my senior year of high school four years ago. There was an American flag in the center of the ground, it was extremely moving.

Following ground zero, trinity church and wall street we went to Max Brenner for dinner. Second time there and I almost died because the chocolate is so incredible!! Seriously, if you ever come to New York this is a must go to restaurant!!



Sunday we went to the Met and I was able to see almost everything I didn't see the first time there. This picture was taken in the Arms and Armor section.



On Tuesday night we saw the play "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof". It had an all star cast with James Earl Jones (voice of Mufasa in The Lion King, voice of Darth Vader in Star Wars, and more) Phylicia Rashad (best known for playing Claire Huxtable on The Cosby Show) Terrence Howard (from August Rush, Crash, Mr. Holland's Opus and Dead Presidents).

Secret Garden - Bruce Springsteen

Now most of you are probably wondering why in the world did I post the "Secret Garden" song by Springsteen as the title of this blog. Well, earlier today, approximately around 3:30pm at work we received word that Tim Russert, Chief Political Correspondent and host of Meet the Press for NBC News passed away from a heart attack. Once this news was released to NBC, and an hour later to the rest of the world, the station went into what is known as "crash" mode.

A crash story is a breaking news story (i.e. 9/11, Virginia Tech, etc.). You have very little time, just hours, to create small segments (from about 6-14 minutes long) which can be tied into an hour segment. Lots of time with ad lib in between from the anchors and reporters depending on the story. Once we received word on this story, we had 6.5 hours to put together a segment for the nightly news which aired at 10pm.

One word to describe this experience: CHAOS. Tapes were thrown at the interns left and right to log (transcribe) of Russert over this 25 year plus career in the business and with NBC. My personal assignments to receive the feed from New Jersey (where all our archive tapes are located--from 2005 and back). This was hard to do because I couldn't rewind or fast forward the feed. I had to take it as it came in and do my best to transcribe what came on the spot. Quite a challenge.

My second assignment was to help one of the directors of the show, Frank. I did odds and ends just an hour before the show. We received the opening story just 12 minutes before air time and was able to throw graphics and adjust the audio with 6 minutes left. I was declared as the person to run the tape down to the main edit room on the 2nd floor. I ran down from the 5th floor with the master copy as fast as my legs could carry me. Two people followed right behind me in case I fell. The craziest part was they sent another person with a second tape down the elevator in case I fell and the tape broke. What an experience!!

Tonight's experience of working on a crash was the perfect way to finish up my internship. I only have a few days left next week, but this was the cherry on top. Oh yes, and this song was played during the "Rememberances" portion of the nightly news segment on Russert because he was a huge Bruce Springsteen fan. I learned alot tonight about journalism and the impact one person can have on both the industry, community and world.