Audrey and Noel’s Blog

Okay, so this is kind of late, I know. The race did end Saturday. However, Audrey tore it up on her final leg and I have to let everyone know about it. Her final leg is known as the Ragnar leg, which was supposed to be the most difficult leg of the whole course. It was 4 miles, all uphill at average of an 8% incline.

Whitney passing the "baton" to Audrey to begin her final leg

Look how happy she is to be running

Most of the people “running” this leg actually walked it because it was so difficult and they were all so tired. Not Audrey, though, she was truly Ragnarly.

Passing all the men

Only one more mile!

Finally done and passing the baton to Erika

Thirty-one hours after starting, the whole team rolled into Park City triumphant and just ahead of a torrential downpour and thunderstorm. Oh yeah, and they were all wearing tie died dyed stuff.

The finish line

I am so proud of my Ragnarly wife.

This is a sign we made to cheer Audrey on

So, tonight I stayed with Emily and Dan in Coalville and their house is directly on the race course. All night long people were running by. The dogs were going nuts. The fortunate thing is that this part of the course was one of Audrey’s legs, so we got to see her run by and cheer her on. She was keeping up a good pace and passing all the guys as usual.

Running by Emily and Dan's house in Coalville

She was so fast, that I had a hard time catching her on camera

This leg was a tough one, a full 7.7 miles of rolling hills. She made it to the exchange point about sunrise strong, happy, and tired. Only one more to go…the ragnar.

Happy to be done...for now

So, Audrey is running the Wasatch Back relay race today and tomorrow. I’ll try to post what’s going on as it happens, maybe with pictures if we’re lucky.

This is probably the most exciting thing to happen to me since seeing a woman in Park City pushing a cat in a stroller. Anyway, I’ve been itching to make really good artisan-type bread for a while now. Problem is you have to have hours of free time to mix it, knead it, let it rise, knead it again, etc. I’m afraid to say I don’t have that kind of time available, and if I did, I don’t have that kind of attention span to do that very often. So, I’ve been like everybody else and bought lesser bread items from the grocery store.

Yummy bread... (this is their picture, not mine)

That is until I found this bread recipe for lazy people. It’s easy and hard to mess up.  The ingredients are simple and cheap. (You can use regular salt instead of sea salt and a cookie sheet instead of a pizza peel.) The bread is delicious. The dough also makes one of the best pizza crusts I’ve ever had too.

So, without further ado:

Five Minutes a Day for Fresh-Baked Bread

ragnar (n). In mythology and legend, a man[or woman], often of divine ancestry, who is endowed with great courage and strength, celebrated for his [or her] bold exploits and favored by the gods.

I just got invited to join a Wasatch Back team, which makes me both nervous and giddy. Nervous because I haven’t been specifically training for the event and it’s next weekend. Giddy, because what could be more fun than a 24 hr+ relay? I get to run three legs and one of them is the “Ragnar” leg, which is supposedly the hardest leg of the run: four miles with a 1678 ft gain in elevation. Hopefully I will be endowed with great strength and favored by the gods.

Right now I am working at what I believe will be my last “student job” (Student Teaching doesn’t count because I’m not getting paid, but am actually paying for the experience).  Currently, I work in an office where I am the same age as the girl in the office next to me, she however is not a student employee since she graduated from a major that has a more traditional graduation time-line.  One of the tasks I, the indentured servant, have been assigned at work is inventorying the storage room.

As I’m in the middle of consolidating boxes and stacking tupperwares, my co-worker walks in and tells me that we might be moving all our belongings to another location. The reason: they are moving student employees into the area on the other side of  the 7 foot wall that protects all of our valuables (old posters, XXL polos, and a million fishbowls filled with decorative rocks). When I ask why we would need to change storage rooms I am told that it is a “security issue” because the students might scale the wall and take things.

I glance at the mess that surrounds me and ask, “Scale the wall?”

She nods her head seriously.

“So what exactly are you expecting them to take,” I ask in a borderline accusational tone.

“Well, mostly we worry about the food items.” She motions toward a shelf stocked mostly with nearly expired condiments and a giant container of chicken seasoning.

“You think people are going to steal your BBQ sauce?”

“Well, mostly we’re worried because we have soda pop over here.”

So, we might move all of our junk because the ever dishonest students are going to climb over their cubicles and pilfer the left-over Diet Cokes that no one drank at the last employee luncheon.  Heaven knows why I’m even allowed in there.   But who am I to talk, here I am commiting what is referred to as “time theft” as I vent on my blog at my work computer. I feel like I’m 18 all over again.

In my last post, Lina’s comment referenced the “Technology Void,” which is a name Noel and I often use when referring to our apartment. Technology doesn’t work in our apartment, I’m serious.

Here’s my proof:

• When we moved in there was a post-it note tacked to the wall above the oven with these simple instructions: Bake is Broil, Broil is Bake.  As it turns out, “Off”, is also Broil.
• When the big switch to HD happened we went and purchased a digital converter box. I was excited because my friend Emily had told me the number of channels she got multiplied when she and her husband installed their box. When we installed our box the number of channels we receive decreased; we still have the Valley Channel, but no longer get Telemundo.
• If the computer is on at the same time as the TV, the TV won’t work. We learned this when we were enjoying our semi-annual TV watching experience (General Conference) and Pres. Monson turned into frozen, boxy pixels when Noel tried to do homework.
• If I am using my computer in the kitchen and decide that I want to print something, I have to sprint from one end of the house to the other (and our place isn’t that big) and quickly plug in my computer before it dies.
• The keyboard has a finicky plug-in cord. If it isn’t in at exactly the right angle it won’t work. Currently the cord is duct taped and should be okay as long as no one jostles it. It also only makes sound when the volume is nearly at its max.
• Noel’s computer has a blue line down the middle of the screen and you have to exert all your body weight on the right corner in order to get it closed, but that could be because it fell off a car . . .
• We’ve tried to have internet at our house twice. The first time our service was so spotty they sent a repair man to our house after our 7th call. The repair man told us the signal was strong at the box, but became weak once it entered the house. He blamed it on poor wiring. Recently Noel thought he’d come up with an excellent scheme, but after 2 wonderful weeks of DSL in our very own home, the signal became non-existent and we had to cancel so we could escape a two-year contract.
• Our plumbing is connected to everyone else in the house. This means that if someone flushes the toilet and you’re in the shower your best bet is to flatten yourself against the wall and turn the water off if you don’t want to get boiled alive.
• Our garage door is affected by the temperature. Sometimes when the weather changes it won’t close.  This has only happened  since our old neighbors ran into it, even though they claimed the door became dented on its own . . .
• Our freezer leaks. Every couple of weeks I have to mop up the small lake that has formed in the bottom of our refrigerator before it overflows.

While you could argue that we just live in a cheap apartment and never buy new things, I think there are too many problems for this all to be coincidental. Still, visiting our house could be a nice vacation from the pressures of the world, like an exotic get-away where you leave all your technology induced cares at home. I hope you all keep that in mind.

I arrived at work this morning to find that a transformer had blew and the power was out. However, since some of the projects that go on at the company are very important (ie costs millions of $) everyone’s computers and experiments are hooked up to generators. The secretary made an announcement that the power might be on in the next couple of hours. Everyone remains diligently at their desks acting as if it were a normal Monday, sending emails, making phone calls, and holding meetings in semi-darkness.  Still, it could be worse. Noel can’t get into his building and several of the people that arrived at work earlier can’t get out, even after pulling the fire alarm . . . that can’t be good for business.

So, here I sit in the dark (my office doesn’t have any windows) holding my to-do list up to the soft glow of my computer screen, wondering if what I’m doing is really that important.  I am reminded of winter when it snows three feet overnight, but no one with authority seems to notice, and we still have to go to school the next day.  I miss the days when people would stop what they were doing because the weather was bad or technology decided not to work. I want to stop taking my responsibilities so seriously. With youthful exuberance I want to drop what I’m doing and glory in a good snow day, power outage day, I hate work day, whatever. I mean, is what any of us are  doing really that important?

For Memorial Day, Audrey and I went backpacking in Escalante. It was a lot of fun even though we got caught in the rain. Fortunately we found shelter in the canyon and it wasn’t a very narrow one. After we got out we met up with Danielle and company at Bryce Canyon for some good eats.

Anyway, here are the pictures.

As it turns out, we’re on page three on Google for the search “circumference of a lacrosse crease.” Way to strike a blow for thinking indeed.