What's Going On With Ryan?

Today I’m going to talk about what happened in Paris last night.

Last night ISIS attacked people in Paris and over 120 people are dead. This honestly terrifies me because those people were just out enjoying themselves then all of a sudden they’re being shot at and it saddens me how a group that’s so full of hatred exists. For a group to just be so brutal and have no respect for human life is just mind blowing to me.

I honestly wish I could fly to Paris right now and actually help rather than just writing on the internet about it. I hate fighting and war but ISIS needs to be stopped before anything else happens.

With what happened last night it really makes me appreciate living in Logan, Utah. Sure it may be cold and windy and lots of judgemental people, but here I am safe and secure. There’s an awesome community who cares for one another and band together when an issue happens and I am grateful for that.

I hate talking politics because frankly I feel every politician is a dumbass, but I need to express my thoughts. America would be so much better if congress did what was best for the majority of people and not just the top 10% who lobby and persuade them. Money in politics is destroying our country. If you were to pay politicians a fraction of what they get the job would be less appealing and people who actually have great ideas would be in office.

The fact that democrats and republicans have such different views on every single issue is why nothing gets done. If you were to throw average americans into congress I would bet you money that they would sit down and discuss the pros and cons of every issue and what’s best for america and things would get done.

People in general just piss me off. The fact that people are complaining about Starbucks having a solid red cup and saying they hate Jesus makes me sad for America. Probably the reason why they removed the Christmas stuff was so that their marketing would appeal to a wider group of people that may be of other religions, but a cup shouldn’t make a difference if you buy a product. Another reason why America pisses me off is making such a big deal about Caitlyn Jenner. Honestly I hate her. Not because of the whole transgender thing but because how much media attention it’s getting and the fact she won a bravery award over people that were injured in the military.

The final topic is the new LDS policy. I left the church 4 years ago just because I was bored going and I had questions that nobody answered. I don’t hate Mormonism whatsoever and many of my friends are mormon, but with the church not allowing the kids of gay parents to go on missions, get baptized, or be a member of the church until they’re 18 and disavow their parents marriage is just awful. They’re kids for crying out loud! They have no choice if they’re born into a gay family and they shouldn’t be punished if they want to join the LDS church. In elementary school if you weren’t LDS you were kind of an outcast and people didn’t want to hang around with you, and I don’t want those kids feeling that way. It’s just unfair. Many people have left the church because of it, and I respect their decision. Many people are defending the policy, and I respect their decision.

Growing up I was always told that gay people were bad and people of other religions are bad too. So I always tried to avoid them or looked down on them. This changed when I was a Junior in high school, this is the age I kinda started to grow up. I learned that everybody regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, and whatever else deserve love and respect. The only way the world is going to get better if you show love and kindness towards one another and give everyone a chance. Sure there are bad apple in every group like ISIS is for muslims or the KKK is for Christians, you can’t base your view on an entire group on a select few. There will always be bad things going on in the world like hate crimes, if you respond to those hate crimes with love and not violence then you are the real winner.

End Rant.

This summer I took 2 online classes, Stat 2300 and Math 1100 (Calculus). I spent countless hours working on them, the Statistics class was far easier than the Calculus class. At some points I didn’t even know if I was going to pass the Calculus class and I wanted to quit so badly because I didn’t understand it and I was doing awful on tests. I just kept going and hoping for the best. I spent days studying for the Calculus final and I guess I did alright because I ended up getting a B- in the class somehow. This taught me not to give up on things that are hard. Keep trying your best and things will be alright in the end.

Doing the right thing isn’t a hard thing to do. It can range from helping with chores around the house to walking an elderly lady across the street. The little things make a difference in other peoples lives so why not do them? You shouldn’t do it for the recognition, you should do them because they need help and it’s the right thing to do.

When I was a newborn to around 6 years old I lived in this house in Sandy, Utah that my mom was renting. I wanted to share some stories from me growing up. Keep in mind I was 6 or under so some of these will be really dumb and silly.

1.Christmas morning of 1999 my mom got me a dog named Rascal, he was a Cairn Terrier and with being an only child he was like my brother. I remember my mom opening the door to the house and called his name and he came running inside and came over to me and licked my face.

2. One night I was taking a shower and the bathroom door was open, my dog Rascal walked into the bathroom and sat down and just looked at me. I started thinking maybe he’s thirsty so I grab the shower head and put it on the bathroom floor and turned it on. He started drinking so I left it on, my mom came up a minute later and started yelling at me because water was dripping onto her home office downstairs. Whoops.

3. My mom started thinking Rascal was getting lonely so we got another Cairn Terrier to play with named Buster. This dog was SATIN. My mom and I went to breakfast and then came home and the couch, shoes, just about everything was chewed up. There was also dog crap and pee everywhere. It was like out of a movie! We ended up giving him away to my moms friend who said that he could train Buster. He ended up not being able to do it because he was too wild, Buster was then given to a woman who worked at a day care. Buster was brought to the day care one day and one of the parents saw the dog and wanted him. The parent ended up being super rich and Buster got his own toy chest and bed. (Not sure if the whole thing is true, this is just what i’ve been told)

4. One day I was playing Super Smash Bros for the Nintendo 64 and I just defeated the Master Hand boss and I was super pumped, so what did I do? I ran over to my mom and punched her…Yes I got grounded for that.

5. In the summer there was a lightning/thunder storm but it wasn’t raining. A few of the neighbor kids and I sat out on the lawn and watched/listened to the storm. It was really cool until a loud BOOM and a close strike of lightning sent us all running. I was walking around or street the next day and the lightning had struck a brick wall up the street. (Next to the hose I’d eventually move to)

6.I had gerbils growing up, my mom and I went to the pet store and got 2 “females” but one turned out to be a male an they had babies like crazy! They’d eat anything, I even think they started eating their glass cage. Anyways, I used to get babysat all the time and my babysitters would have gerbil races down the hall. We’d block off the doors with towels and pick our gerbil for the race and then let them run.

7. One night I was being babysat and I remember sitting in the living room watching the Disney channel show called Motocrossed (Awesome movie btw), and my tooth was loose and I pulled it out and I lost my first tooth. I put it under my pillow for the tooth fairy that night and I woke up and there was a $50 under it! I ran to my mom to share the news and she seemed shocked and said, “Maybe it was dark and the Tooth Fairy messed up on what she gave you.” Then I remember I “lost” the $50 but I have a hunch my mom took it.

8. My mom used to have a Station wagon, so old school right? We pulled up to our driveway and she had to run to the garage to grab something. My inner Ricky Bobby came out and I drove the Station wagon into the garage and knocked over tons of boxes and things. And I almost hit my mom too.

9. Another incident, I was in a big truck and my mom left it so I was in there all alone. I moved over to the drivers seat and I put the car in reverse and I started backing out of the driveway. Then the car started going down the street and I had no idea what to do. My dad (one of the few times he was there) was yelling at me from the lawn and I got over to the passenger seat and he pulled me out of the truck. The trucked turned out of our street and then went down the road with nobody in it.

10. One of my neighbors used to farm butterflies or something. One day he released all of them from his back yard and all of these butterflies just flew right over me and it was super cool!

11. I went to Challenger for pre-school and kindergarten. Challenger is a private school type of thing. Anyways, there was this girl named Ashley and I was 5 years old and was totally in love with her. I guess I got her gifts or something (I don’t really remember this) but it happened. I was that awkward 5 year old. Ashley invited me to her birthday party at Chuck E Cheese,(whenever I went here as a kid I always got sick, I had Chronic Croup) And so I went, it was an all girls party and then me. It was so freaking awkward. Years later Ashley and I started talking and now we’re super good friends!

12. My mom and I would always go to breakfast at this restaurant called Johannas Kitchen, we’d drive there listening to This Kiss By Faith Hill. I’d get the teddy bear pancake, always.

13. My mom and I were eating dinner one night and then there was a knock at the door, I opened it and it was a cat. We thought it was weird but we got the cat some milk and then it would go away. This was going on for months. We started calling the cat Iggy. Iggy showed up to our house one night and was breathing weird, we took her to the vet and she had cancer and we put her down. So we either put down a stray cat or we killed one of our neighbors cats.

14. Now all of the memories can’t be good, we used to have these two dogs named Sampson and Bear. Sampson was a husky and I can’t remember what Bear was. My mom went out to feed the dogs and then they started fighting and they ended up biting my mom pretty bad. The rest of the night I remember that my dad came over and I watched James and The Giant Peach in my room.

15. On St. Patricks day I came downstairs and a lot of the furniture was knocked over. My mom told me that the leprechauns did it and I believed that for years. Now that I look back on it, that was an awesome thing to do.

16. I was playing the Nintendo 64 with some of the neighbor kids at my house, I showed them some of the games that I had and they thought they were really cool. The kids left and I put the games away. My mom and I left to go somewhere then came back and the games were gone. The neighbor kids broke into the house and stole games while we were away. Game like the original Mario Party, Mario Party 2 & 3, Mario Kart, and other games I loved.

17. One morning I was was watching Disney Channel, probably Rollie Pollie Ollie, and my mom and dad were fighting about something. I remember them fighting right behind the couch where I was sitting. I stood up on the couch and yelled at them to stop fighting and then my dad left for good and I didn’t see or hear from him for about 10 years.

18. On my birthday one year my mom hired a magician to come and preform at my party.

19. I was being babysat again in the winter, it was snowing outside and my babysitter and I went out and built and igloo. I have absolutely no idea how she did it but it was really cool.

20. I was at my neighbors house, they had 6 kids or something 1 guy and 5 girls. I remember being down in the Taylors (the guy) room and he was playing I miss you by Blink182. Years later I heard that song on the radio and I had a total flash back to that point in time.

I can’t remember anything else, so I suppose this is what I remember from my early childhood. I hope you enjoyed my wacky adventures.

-Ryan

One night in January I was laying in my dorm room trying to fall asleep but I couldn’t because so I started thinking of cool ideas for spring break. I texted my mom and she was on board with the whole idea, then when spring break came around we went on our trip.

On Friday March 6th, 2015 we flew into the Seattle airport, rented a car then got lunch at Ballard Bridge Cafe. We had no idea where we were going because our GPS was being weird so we asked them for directions and off we were to Canada.

It was about a 2 hour drive to the boarder, for some reason I was most excited for this part of the trip. For some reason I’ve always wanted to go to Canada and finally it was happening. After we cross the boarder we drive for a little and we start noticing that the signs are in kilometers and not miles which was pretty foreign to us but we got through it. We were trying to find our hotel using the GPS but it wasn’t working at all. We ended up at a Tim Hortons and got coffee and doughnuts. We were reluctant to use our cell phones because of the high out of country data charge to them but we had to because we were so lost.

We finally got to the hotel and it was in this awesome complex with a movie theater, Indoor trampoline place, ice skating rink, and a pizza place. It was like an 8 year olds dream area. We checked in a went up to our room and got onto our beds and just kinda laid there after the crazy day we had. I turned on the tv and curling (throwing a stone with a handle and sweeping the ice) was on and I sat there and thought, wow this is so Canadian.

After resting for a bit we went to the store and bough some stuff. I head that chocolate for Canadians was sweeter so I got some of that, some kinder eggs (these things are a chocolate shell with a yellow capsule thing in the center with a toy, they’re illegal in America.) I also got Kraft Dinner, known as Craft Mac and Cheese in the states.

On Saturday March 7th, 2015 we woke up and went downstairs for breakfast and they have a pancake machine! A machine that you push a button and pancakes come out! How awesome is that? We asked the manager what we should do and he gave us some ideas and off to the city of Vancouver we went off to.

Our GPS still wasn’t working and we couldn’t use our phones so we had to go old school, maps. This was the first time I actually had to use a map for directions so it took me a while to figure it out, I also have trouble with my right and lefts so that added into the fun of this experience. I can’t tell you how many times we missed out turns or went the wrong way.

We got to Vancouver and we drove around for a little bit. We went and saw where the Vancouver Canucks play, I got a few things from there. We then went to this place called Canadian Place, and boy was it Canadian. They even had a ride called Fly Over Canada (rip off of soaring over California at Disneyland) and they did it so you flew over Canada and then a separate one where you flew over America and it was pretty cool! My mom and I got off the ride and walked around the complex and we found a gift shop and I got a Canadian flag, which I hung on my wall at home.

Vancouver has a lot of one way streets and that makes getting somewhere extremely hard. I wanted to go to Stanley Park, which is Vancouver’s Central Park in New York. We had to go clear across town to get to it. We’re getting close to it and we start seeing signs, I’m using the map (which I was still awful at) and there is an overhead sign that said Stanley Park, my mom asked, “Is that is?” and I was looking at the map and it said that street was a one way street so I said so then I looked up and thought, crap that’s it. I then told my mom just to go over the bridge and we’ll loop around and come back. The said, “I CAN MAKE IT.” She then steers the car to the exit but in the process hits a cement curb really hard, we made it over it and she said, “See, we’re fine.” Then the low tire pressure light came on and there was a collective oh crap given. We go a little ways down the road and pull over. We had a flat tire.

We had no idea what to do, we were in a foreign country, in the middle of a park, in a rental car, and it was getting dark. We tried to call someone for help but it wasn’t working. I went to the back of the car and pulled out the jack and was trying to figure it out because it was really weird. I eventually figured it out so I grabbed the spare tire and went to go change the tire. My mom was still on the phone trying to get help and I was just out there on the ground raising the car and changing the tire. In high school I had taken an auto shop class but I always had an electric jack and power tools to help me change the tire so this was somewhat new to me. I ended up changing the tire and then we went to some seafood restaurant that was in the park.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel and started thinking about how we were going to get a replacement tire so we could drive to Seattle the next day. We then just put off finding a place till tomorrow.

On Sunday March 8th, 2015 we went downstairs and got breakfast and then we went back up to our room and loaded up the car with our stuff. Our goal today was to find a replacement tire for our car. There was this place called Canadian Tire by the store we went to on our first night and we decided to check there. We got there and they said they didn’t have the right size and that no Canadian tire carried them.

We went to lunch at a place called Boston Pizza and we were trying to find options. We called Costco and they did’t have the size and since it was Sunday most places were closed. After about 45 minutes of calling and searching I come across this place called Alpi’s Tire Depot which was 30 miles away. I called them asking for the tire and they said they have one left but they closed in an hour. We rushed to the car and rushed and we got there just in time. They had the exact tire that was on the rental car that was only about 80% used, they put it on and then we got gas from a gas station down the road. In the gas station they had Lays potato chips that were KETCHUP flavored. Naturally, I got some and ate them.

After that pit stop we headed to the boarder and drove to Seattle. We got to our hotel, unloaded all of our stuff then we drove around the town and got dinner from this Irish pub and it was a cool place. After dinner we went back to the hotel and crashed hard.

Monday Mach 9th, 2015 We woke up and had no time to waste, we headed over to Pike Place before it got super busy. We got there and we started walking around all of the stalls and looking at the fish, flowers, and just awesome randomness there was. A few blocks away there was this coffee shop called Monorail Espresso I really wanted to try because they had a latte that tasted like creme brûlée. It was super good but it didn’t really taste like it. Walking back to Pike Place we come across the Seattle Seahawks team store and I bought some things from there.

When we got back to Pike Place we asked this guy in an orange vest (I think he was an ambassador) where the gum wall was and he was and he was really enthusiastic and a cool guy. So being in Seattle you have to do a mandatory gum wall picture. It’s this alley in Pike Place with gum just all over the walls, super cool. Another thing I wanted to try was Ginger Beer, it wasn’t that good. We got clam chowder (that’s seriously my favorite food) we actually waited in line for about half an hour but it was some of the best clam chowder i’ve had in my life, sooo good. Then we headed over the the “first Starbucks in existence”, Fun fact: The original Starbucks actually burnt down so it’s all a lie. The hot water wasn’t working so only cold drinks, then they ran out of iced coffee, so then only frappes. Kinda a bummer. We headed back to the market and I got these cool canvas prints to put on my wall and then we left.

We went over to the Space Needle when the sun was setting and it was one of the more beautiful things i’ve seen in my life. I highly recommend it. After that we went back to the hotel and went to bad.

Tuesday March 10th, 2015 We woke up, had breakfast at the hotel and then headed down to the pier to go on a harbor cruise. On the cruise you could see the entire Seattle skyline in all of its beauty. The cruise tour guy said a lot of cool facts but I remember none of them, but they were cool. After the cruise we went over to the aquarium, it would have been a lot cooler if I was 8 but it was a little boring, except they had seals and sea otters so that was pretty cool. Outside the aquarium on one of the piers there was a ferris wheel and we rode that but it was really lame, if you go to Seattle I highly advise against that.

We headed back over to the Space Needle, but we went next door to it to the Chiluli Gardens. It’s pretty much tons of colored blown glass, which was neat. There were things that looked like flowers, plants, and just random squiggly things. My mom thought it was super cool but it was just ehhh to me. It was too asrtsy.

After the garden we went over to the EMP (Experimental Music Project) Museum but they were closing so we couldn’t go in. My mom had a surprise for me and we walked to the Space Needle and then she told me that we were going to have dinner there. Let me tell you something, eating dinner in the Space Needle was one of the coolest things i’ve done. The floor of the restaurant rotated so you would actually get to see the entire city while you ate dinner. The food was great and it was a super fun night. There were these women that were sitting behind us that were talking extremely loud, possibly drunk, and they were talking about someone named Jim and how he was going through some stuff, to this day I still wonder how things turned out for Jim.

Wednesday March 11th, 2015 We were supposed to be In Portland Oregon staring our drive to California today but we decided to spend that extra day in Seattle. We packed our things into our car, checked out of the hotel, and went to the EMP museum. I’m really glad we stopped here because they had all of these things from Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Macklemore, and even the Lombardi trophy that that Seahawks won. They had this super cool sculpture that was just guitars and I highly recommend going here.

We had a long way to drive so we stared on our journey. We drove for a few hours and we were coming up on Portland, I told my mom to keep driving so we could get as far as we could that day. Looking back on that it was stupid. I wish that we would’ve stopped there. Anyways, we decide to stop and spend the night in this place called Grants Pass in Oregon. We stayed at the Best Western and the room that we got smelt like piss and it was bad.

Random Fun fact: You can’t pump your own gas in Oregon.

Thursday March 12th, 2015 As soon as we woke up we wanted to get out of Grants Pass. We packed up and got back on the road to California after a few hours of driving we crossed the state line. This stretch of the drive we saw many weird things, one being this store in the woods called the Legend Of Sasquatch. There was this wooden statue of Shreck and he looked very Asian. We eventually drove into the Redwood forrest and the trees were humongous. It was really cool to see.

We came out of one section of the forrest into this town, I can’t remember the name of it. While we were in town we got coffee from Dutch Bros, that’s like a chain coffee place that’s mainly in the northwest. Then we got fish tacos and went and saw the ocean. It was a really nice area too. We continued on our drive and went back into the Forrest, I think we drove in it for 4 hours, we were in there forever. We came across a tree that cars can actually drive through so we wanted to do that, it turns out that our was was too wide so we just got a picture with me next to it.

We got back on the road and at this point i’m sick of driving and we’re getting hungry. My mom really wanted stake so we stopped at an Outback Steakhouse and got dinner. After dinner we went back to driving but then we could see the Golden Gate Bridge and we knew that we were close! We crossed the bridge and made it to our hotel where we promptly fell asleep.

Friday March 13th, 2015 Today we woke up and we went to the piers, we were going on tour of Alcatraz. Alcatraz is really cool because it’s a jail on an island. We walked around for a few hours and it got me thinking how awful being here must have been because the facility was bad. I know it had been shut down for years but still. We got back to the mainland and we decided to do a jump on jump off bus tour thing, biggest waste of money ever. We drove around the city and they told us some facts but the entire thing was kinda lame.

We jumped off at Fishermans Wharf and saw the sea lions and ate lunch. After we ate we hopped back on and drove around some more and went back to our car.

Saturday March 14th, 2015 This was the day I was looking forward to all trip. Today was the day I got to see the Chicago Black Hawks play the San Jose Sharks. I love the Blackhawks and when I saw that they were going to be there at the same time I had to go. In the morning we got some breakfast and then headed to San Jose. We got to the arena and went inside, I think we had 7th row or something in that area. It was so much fun plus the Blackhawks won 6-2 so that was pretty cool! After the game we went outside and it was 85 degrees…in March. I don’t remember much from the rest of the day.

Sunday March 15th, 2015 This was the day that we were leaving but our flight didn’t leave till 6pm out of Oakland. In the morning we packed up the car, checked out, and then we went and took pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge. We wanted to get a better few so we went up on this hill to take pictures but there was loads of people. We eventually drove around and I guess we were In Golden Gate park. We came across a beach area that had surfers, swimmers, and people just chilling on the beach. I think surfing is super cool so I got some pretty good action shots of the surfers. Then it was time to head to Oakland to fly home. We dropped off our car at the rental car place, we didn’t tell them about the flat tire, and they didn’t say anything so that was a personal victory for us. We got to the airport and our flight was delayed a couple of hours so we decided to get dinner at a restaurant in the airport and then we boarded the airplane and flew home.

This trip was one of the best trips i’ve been on and I am lucky to be able to have had these experiences that I will always carry with me.

Thanks for Traveling with me

– Ryan