Cops

I don't know how any of you feel about cops, but I personally feel like they have a real authority complex going on.  If any of you have been pulled over for speeding, maybe your experience will help support my theory when it comes to cops.  It seems to me that they want to show off how much power they have, be able to abuse their authority, yet still have you like them in the end.

I have limited experience, but it goes something like this.  I get pulled over for going 10 mph over the speed limit.  The cop then tells me that he clocked me going 14 mph over, but that he'll only report me for going 9 mph over.  I guess his thinking goes something like this: "If I tell him that he was going faster than he really was, but that I will let him off for less, then he'll like me because I'm being a nice guy."  Really?!?  If you wanted to be a nice guy, you would let me off, the way you do when you pull over a girl that you think is cute.  And if you wanted to be an honest cop, you would write me a ticket for going 10 mph over.  That's what they do in Hungary (I may or may not know from personal experience).  They say "Hey, you were going 17 kph over and here's your ticket.  You need to pay it by this date."  None of the "I could write you up for this and that, and this, etc." that the cops here try to pull to show off their authority.  They simply do their job, enforcing the law.

As another examples, take Bill, who ran the Red Rock Relay with us.  Bill likes to hunt, and a few years ago, he decided to go hunting on Y Mountain in Provo (which is legal, by the way) and he even had the tag necessary to put on his deer.  He was hunting with a muzzle loader (for those of you who don't know, this is one of those pioneer type guns, where you put the black power down the barrel, then stuff the ball down in, and it fires when the little hammer strikes the cap and ignites the black power) and ended up shooting a deer, which he then carried all the way down the mountain to his car, which happened to have a camo paint job.  There was a note on the car from the Provo City police saying that it was illegal to be hunting there (which it wasn't).  He put the deer into his car and was going to put the tag on the deer, but he didn't have any scissors to cut the hard plastic of the tag.  He decided that he would just until he got home, since he was already covered with blood from the deer.

As he was driving home, he got pulled over (since the cops knew he was up there and were waiting for him to come down).  Since he was in his hunting gear, the cop asked him if he had any weapons in the car, to which he responded, "Yeah, I have a muzzle loader in the front seat, and it's loaded."  Apparently, that statement wasn't taken the way Bill intended it (he was just trying to inform the officer, while the officer took it as a threat).  The cop then started yelling at him to get out of the car, at which point his partner got out of the car to give some back up.  He said that the muzzle loader was loaded because he couldn't get the cap off, so he took off the hammer, so it wouldn't be able to fire.  Then his partner noticed that there was a deer in the back that wasn't tagged.  Bill tried to explain his situation, to which he was yelled at and told that they didn't want to hear any more of his excuses.

They told him that anything he said can and would be used against him in a court of law and told him that he was being arrested on site.  They put him in the back of the cop car and then proceeded to go through his car.  They ended up taking his deer because it wasn't tagged.  Someone from the fish and wildlife service came out and Bill tried to explain about the muzzle loader.  They didn't believe him and they too tried to get the cap off, to no avail, which eventually led to the cops firing the muzzle loader into someone's front lawn.  They called in to dispatch to let them know, in case anyone reported the gun fire in the neighborhood.

In the end, Bill was let go without his deer (which he had the cop measure, having a 22" rack).  It didn't really occur to him that he had been arrested since it was an "on-site arrest" and they let him go after, but it still comes up occasionally that he has a criminal record.

All of this reminds me of D&C 121:39:  "We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion."

Now, I'm not saying all cops are this way, but it does concern me the amount of unrighteous dominion taken by many cops.  Just a thought that I had after hearing Bill's experience during the race.

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Red Rock Relay

On September 9th and 10th, we participated in the Red Rock Relay.  For those of you who have heard of the Ragnar Relay, this is very similar.  It is essentially a twelve person relay race that went 187 miles from Brian Head to Zions.  Each person runs three legs that vary in length from 2 miles to over 8 miles.  You are split up into two vans, with six people in each van.  Everyone in one van will run a leg then you hand off to the other van and try to get some rest while they run before it's your turn again.

It was quite an adventure trying to get enough people for our team, and the connection between some of us was being the spouse of a friend of a friend.  Or the old boss of a friend who was once arrested and may or may not at one time have gotten a camo paint job on his car.  (I was tempted to add details that weren't true claiming artistic liberty in story telling, but believe it or not, all those details are true.)  Needless to say, we had a pretty interesting group.

Since we were in two separate vans, we didn't get to interact very much with Van 2, but in Van 1 we had a blast.  Our characters included the following people: me, Sarah, Sarah's friend from high school named Meghan and her friend Kate that she plays hockey with, Rita, a chemical engineering student from Taiwan, who started running on her mission because her mission president made it a rule to run every day, and Bill, who just happens to be that old boss mentioned in the previous paragraph.  If you haven't figured it out, Bill was the most entertaining team member to have.  

I'm sure our parents are now very worried that we spent almost two days in a van with a criminal, so if anyone is interested in reading more, check out my post about cops.  As long as we're giving disclaimers, this next story may be too graphic for those with young children, so feel free to skip the next two paragraphs.

The race started with Bill riding a ski lift to the top of Brian Head, then running down the mountain, where he handed off to Sarah, who had a killer run that gained over a thousand feet of elevation in little over two miles.  She then handed off to me, where I began my 8.4 mile run (I believe this was the longest leg of the race, but I don't know for sure).  It was a little bit chilly, and for a while I was actually running in the snow.

(Warning, this is the graphic part I was referring to.  Consider yourself duly warned to skip this paragraph if you don't like graphic running stories.)  As I was a little more than halfway through my run, I was started to get some pretty bad gas pains in my stomach.  At one point I farted every stride for at least twenty strides in a row.  As a side note, I had already pooped that morning before we left and once again in a porta-potty when we got to Brian Head.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make it until the end of my leg, like I had initially hoped.  I made a dash for the woods and took care of business there.  One guy that I had passed earlier, passed me while I was taking my break.  He said to me "I was wondering why your pace was slowing down a little bit, but now I know."  Needless to say, I passed him again.  After our van finished, we headed to Walmart, where I just so happened to poop again.  So, for those of you keeping track at home, that is four bowel movements in four different places in less than a twelve hour span of time.  Since we're still in the graphic paragraph, I'll mention here that Kate also threw up on her first leg, and then ran awesome from there on out.

Welcome back, those of you who skipped the graphic paragraph (although I'm sure it was enticing to read given it's great length.  Our next set of legs was running from SUU to Whitecastle, some of which was on dirt roads, pretty late at night.  For our final legs, we ran from Veyo to Washington City, where we handed off to Van 2 and then met them at the finish line - the entrance to Zions.  We may or may not have forgotten to take pictures during the first two legs, so here are the pictures from our last legs, and then at the finish line.

Me before my run at 5am

Bill at the end of his last leg.

(Yes, those are glasses without lenses that have lights on the side.)

Me at the end of my 5am run.

(If I look tired, that's just because I didn't want others to feel bad.)

Rita at the end of her run.

(Isn't she grateful to her mission president now?)

Van 1 having some fun during Kate's run.

Giving Kate a drink during her run.

(This is the least blurry picture Bill took of her whole run.)

Things weren't too hard for Meghan, giving the thumbs up while she ran.

(Not to mention the great scenery she got to enjoy.)

Sarah enjoying her run and the scenery.
(But failing to acknowledge her fans with a thumbs up.)

The two coolest people on our team at the finish line.

(That background isn't photo-shopped in there.)

Van 1 at the finish line, sporting a line on their calves for each leg they ran.

Bill, Rita, Kate, Sarah, Me, and Meghan

Van 2 - Susan, Brian, Jeramy, Brenda, Brandon, & Jordan

(Brenda showing why our team name was "The Seducers.")

We all had a blast, despite being sore the next few days.

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Neice

Yeah, that's right.  I'm an uncle.  Sarah's brother Tyler and his wife Amy had a little baby girl on July 27th, making Sarah an aunt and me an uncle for the first time.  Over Labor Day weekend we went down to Vegas for her baby blessing and got to hold Abby for the first time.

She's your typical baby - favorite things to do include eating, sleeping, pooping and crying.  Oh, and she's pretty cute.  As for the funniest story involving her from the weekend, it's actually more about her dad than her.  He was filling out the form for her blessing and there was a place where it said "Born in Covenant" with a box for "Yes" and a box for "No."  He claims that he was too busy worrying about getting the wording right for the blessing, but we think it is because he thought "Covenant" is an actual place, but he marked the box that said "No."  Needless to say, he had to fill out another form.  (As a side note, my quick search on Google maps didn't reveal any place called "Covenant.")

Without further ado, here is Abby with Uncle Bryan and Aunt Sarah.

That's not a yawn, that's a yell of excitement.

("I can't believe I actually get to be held by Uncle Bryan.")

Even with her eyes closed, she knows there is ketchup and mustard on the table.

If only her little arms were long enough to reach one of them.

Oh, by the way, she is apparently content with Aunt Sarah.

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