Archive for the ‘Once-in-a-Lifetime’ Category
Saturday, September 6th, 2008 |
You may remember my previous post about why I didn’t get an iPhone. Even though I tried to come up with lot’s of reasons why I didn’t need one, the fact was that I really really wanted one. I just couldn’t justify the expense, which for me would have included:
- $200 to cancel my contract with T-Mobile
- $399 for a white 16 gig iPhone 3G
- $30 extra per month on my cell phone bill over two years ($720)
- Plus, my wife and both sides of the family are on T-Mobile so I’m sure that I would have exceeded my minutes on even the cheapest AT&T plan, whereas those same calls are free with T-Mobile.
- There’s another little detail that is hard to quantify. I share a family plan with my 14 year old sister and if i would have cancelled my contract with T-mobile, she would have been without a phone.
My total estimated iPhone upgrade expense: $1,349. Ouch.
A friend of mine upgraded to the iPhone 3G and gifted me his iPhone Classic. The phone is in perfect working condition and he had a protective cover on the phone since the day he got it. I jailbroke the phone, added a data plan to my T-Mobile plan, and now I have an iPhone without the restrictions of a contract with AT&T.
My actual iPhone upgrade expense: $480, or $20/month for the added data plan over two years. Now that’s what I’m talking about! With savings like that, it’s easy to see why the first generation iPhones are selling for upward of $500 on eBay.
To the person who gave me the phone, thank you so much!
Posted in Once-in-a-Lifetime, Radical | 3 Comments »
Sunday, August 10th, 2008 |
A couple of weeks ago my wife leans over to me and says out of nowhere, “You need to get a motorcycle.” How many wives say a thing like that to their husbands?! Needless to say, I was immediately all over craigslist and oodle looking for motorcycles. We looked at several and decided that the Yamaha V Star 1100 was the right size for us to do everything that we want to do. I wanted enough power to feel comfortable on the freeway and to get up those mountain passes quickly. I think that my dream bike is a Honda VTX 1300c but that will just have to wait. 
One day on our lunch break, my wife and I stopped at a place called Obsession Moto Worx to see what they had. They had this beauty in their shop:
A 2005 Yamaha V Star 1100 Classic. This was the first bike that we had looked at that my wife had an emotional attachment to. We had to get it. It’s black with tons of chrome and some really nice add-ons: 2-in-1 pipes, custom seat, hard case saddlebags (a must have if you intend to commute on your bike), windscreen, backrest, floorboards, highway pegs on engine guards. She has been dubbed “Black Betty” and she is beautiful… and loud! Here’s another picture to hold you over until I can get some good wallpaper quality images of the bike.
Posted in Once-in-a-Lifetime, Radical | No Comments »
Saturday, August 9th, 2008 |
So my friend at work called last night and asked if Landry and I wanted to go flying on a power parachute (this guy has all kinds of connections!) and we told him that we would fly any time, any place. He told us to head out to Eagle Mountain at 8:30 a.m. and we would get our chance.
Power Parachute Before Take-Off
Our pilot was Kent Price. He’s been flying these things for 20 years or so and he’s a licensed power parachute instructor here in Utah. He flew us all over the west side of Eagle Mountain and we loved every minute of it!
The parachute or wing
We used a sod farm as our runway and we took off and landed there.
From 750 feet!
Power Parachuting OrangeSoda Style!
If you have the means or if you get the chance to go fly on a power parachute, do it! It is an amazing experience.
Posted in Once-in-a-Lifetime, Radical | 3 Comments »
Thursday, June 12th, 2008 |
My friend Robynn came by work and interviewed me for a piece she was doing for a local news radio station. This is one of those times where hearing the sound of your own voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard or pulling apart cotton balls, but I think that she did a great job!
Posted in Once-in-a-Lifetime, Radical, WTF? | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 |
A couple of weekends ago, several of us from OrangeSoda competed in the First Annual Utah Valley Race All Night Competition. My four-person team was made up of my wife Landry, Amber, Michael, and myself. The prize for the winner was an all-expenses-paid trip to Cancun, Mexico and we really wanted to go to Mexico! We didn’t win but we had a blast. Landry couldn’t walk the day after and I was as completely drained for a couple of days afterward.
Here’s a list of the activities in the order in which we did them:
Day 1 - Friday
- Searched for hidden pieces of paper all over Owlz Stadium at UVU
- Played arcade games at Trafalga until we got 50 tickets
- John Hutchingson Museum
- Home #6 on the Parade of Homes on Traverse Mountain
- Statue Hunting in Downtown Provo
- Seven Peaks Waterpark to slide down “The Free Fall”. I pushed Landry down because she was too scared to do it on her own!
- A car dealership in Lindon to test drive a car to the Purple Turtle and Discovery Park
- Bajio’s in Orem for shrimp tacos
- Coldstone Creamery in Spanish Fork to eat a half gallon of ice cream before they would let us move on!
- Bowled in Payson
- Sundance for mountain biking, hiking, and limerick writing
- My Noah’s for billiards and wallyball
- After Midnight - BYU to take pictures of campus landmarks
- After points were tallied, we were in 3rd place out of 30 teams. We were in bed by 2:00 a.m. at SCERA Park and back up again at 3:45 a.m.
Day 2 - Saturday
- 5:10 a.m. - Hiked Y Mountain
- Canoed on Provo River down by CLAS Ropes Course
- Ice Cream at the Big Red Barn
- Lavender Farms for paddle boats and rock climbing
- Spring Lake for trout fishing
- Krishna Temple in Spanish Fork for walking llamas around an obstacle course
- River rafted down Provo Canyon
- Corporate Alliance Hub for Pride & Prejudice Era dance lessons. (Glad I don’t have any pictures!)
- Springville Museum of Art for I Spy-like activity
- The Quarry rock gym for rock climbing. By this time, we were absolutely exhausted, our bodies were shaking.
- Texted on phones at the Sprint store in Orem
- Back to SCERA Park by 2:00 p.m.
It really was a once-in-a-lifetime experience but I would have to seriously think about it before doing it again! Check out the official website for the race.
Posted in Once-in-a-Lifetime, Radical | 4 Comments »
Monday, November 19th, 2007 |
We spent the weekend in Las Vegas and had tons of fun. We got home and realized that we didn’t take as many pictures as we had hoped we would’ve!
Posted in Once-in-a-Lifetime, WTF? | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007 |
For the past nine months I have endured reading a blog with this hideousness plastered in the sidebar:
No longer will the baby fetus countdown widget be displayed on my sister’s blog! She had her baby yesterday. His name is Caleb and he is my absolute favorite nephew (he’s my ONLY nephew). Congratulations Hil & Jer!
Do you want to see some pictures of baby Caleb? Click here.
Posted in Once-in-a-Lifetime | 2 Comments »
