My birthday is coming up in a few days. A week from today, actually. May 7th. It's the big 2 - 5, which is actually a significant year, a little different than when you turn 23 or 17 and have to make up why this birthday is important. This is an important one.

I have many thoughts concering my birthday. Let me share a couple with you:

1. I'm not especially excited for my birthday this year.

For the past 24 years, a birthday has been a really big event. Especially the last few years. Some examples of past birthday fun include:

24 - Provo, UT - Torrie kept giving me messages all through the night and day, and kept leaving me little clues and treats. (We weren't even officially dating at the time! Ha.) The day concluded with an In & Out Party at Torrie's place (Well, I guess Deanna, Jessica, and Jackie lived there too).





















21 - Rome, Italy - Had an amazing cake from the sisters, drew the Plan of Salvation right outside the Piazza del Popolo (seen above) in front of the Flaminio metro station, and then saw Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte. Awesome.


























13 - Livonia, MI - My mom threw me a party with my friends at Kidstown USA, which was one of those big giant play places. It's shut down now. (Pictured above is Livonia city hall. It didn't even come up in my google image search of Livonia, MI, which included some trash myspace photos of some girl who needs better parenting. Anyway I'm pretty sure there was a whole lot of pizza involved in my party, and no girls, especially trashy livonia myspace girls. (Isn't that sad? You would have hoped that would have stayed in Westland. Burn!) You stay classy, Livonia.

A birthday was always a special occasion to be surrounded by other people and feel loved.

However, I now feel loved everyday in a manner that is stronger and more consistent. I'm no longer on the constant search of love and affection from all of my friends. Now, I have Torrie, and everyday is especially special.

Not that I won't appreciate all the facebook wall notes and many lavish gifts that I'm sure I will receive from my many fans.

2. A birthday is a good chance to review the year before and make goals for the year to come. One advantage of having a May Birthday is it's roughly half the year since Jan. 1st, which is another really good time to set goals. (I no longer make semester goals or anything like that, since I graduated about a year ago.)

So what has happened in the last year? Plenty.

Europe for 5 Weeks
New Job, start a career
Move 900 miles
Fallen in love
Engagement
Marriage
Honeymoon


What will happen in the next year? Plenty.

Children
First Anniversary
New job, new career
Move 2500 miles…at least once.
Buy a house…hopefully

I should correct that. Before you jump to any conclusions, the first option should only be could. Torrie and I are not expecting children at this time.

Life certainly never gets boring! Good thing, too.

You have defaced the good name of Ultra-Clutch!

If you could be any adjective as a sports player, what would it be?

Fast is a good one that comes to mind. This is the one that I'll most often use to describe myself. I may be short, but I can be fast.

If you play for the Detroit Pistons, you better hope that "aggressive" is your word. I have not seen a single Pistons interview over the last 8 years where they didn't use the word aggressive at least three times. Chauncey and Rip led the way. Even Flip Saunders pulled out an aggressive one time. Too bad Chauncey is the only one still using the word, and he doesn't play for the Pistons anymore.

Tall. Long. Big. Powerful. Pick your adjective!

If I could be anything, I would be clutch. The best part about sports is the dramatic moment when the game/season/championship is on the line and somebody comes through. That is the ultimate in sports to me. I now want to tell you the times off the top of my head when I have been truly clutch. Okay, at least somewhat clutch.

Soccer when I was 5.

I kicked in a penalty shot to score a goal. I don't remember if the score was close, but there's a lot of pressure to hit a PK. And I hit it. So I'm going to count it. It's also one of the few times this defenseman I ever scored a goal playing soccer.

Basketball - Church Young Men

Livonia Ward vs. Plymouth Ward.

This was the big game between us and the Plymies. They shared our ward building, and for some reason we absolutely hated them. We hated them! My friend Bethany moved and had to switch wards and I never talked to her again. J/k. Kind of. I have no idea why, but we HAD TO WIN this game.

It was close as the game went on, and although I don't remember the details, but it was tied with about 20 seconds left. Somehow I got the ball and drove for a layup. I got fouled while going to the basket. I had two free throws.

My 15/16 year old self had some of an idea of how huge this was. I, however, told myself it was no big deal. With ice in my veins, I drained the first one. To ice it, I put in the second. The crowd erupted. I was completely focused and stole the inbound pass, and we won.

Basketball - Men

I depicted this basketball game on the blog entry dated the beginning of March and titled "A Basketball Blog Entry". Pretty sweet. Bonus for not being in shape and have only played ball about three times in six months.

Cross-Country

None. I don't remember any times when we just barely won. It seems like we were always barely losing. I had pretty sweet individual races, coming back and beating guys that were ahead of me, but nothing where I really came through for the team and we won.

Track

Again, nothing comes to mind. If anything, our me and our distance team was dominant and did what we needed to do…until the big meets where we would usually fall short by a few points if we were close.

Soccer - Europe

When Torrie and I were in Europe this summer I played soccer on a little cement school playground with a bunch of other backpackers and swiss kids. There were 3 teams of about 7 people, I was wearing sandals…anwyay I scored two goals and we won the championship. It was sweet.

So, to conclude, I don't think I'm really that clutch. Perhaps there's more instances in the past. There are most likely some track/xc items I've missing. There are two periods of basketball not represented - the glory days of the Livonia YM team, the years after the dramatic free throws, where we won every game by like 50. No clutch needed. Also, playing with the BYU interns at George Washington University. I had probably had some clutch times then but I don't remember them.

I do desire to be clutch. However, as I get older, I find less opportunities to be clutch in the sports realm. I guess I'll have to do it with sweet money deals…career changes…great vacations…making my wife happy, or things like that.

Pretty in Pink

For the second year in a row, I found myself in Washington, D.C. during the Cherry Blossom Festival. I took the chance to take some pictures. I don't have too many blog entries that are made up of just pictures, so I hope you'll indulge me. I think they're rather pretty.

We'll start with the Washington Monument.

The Jefferson Memorial and the Tide Basin

The flowers were really pretty!! This was down near the Washington Monument.

Here's a black and white one as well, this one of the Capitol behind the Mall.

The first couple of days were dark and rainy, but Saturday was a beautiful afternoon and a beautiful end to my beautiful 3 days in the D.C. area.

I was in town for some negotiations that haven't been fully disclosed as of yet, so I am unable to make any public comments on the matter at this time.

Highlights of the trip also included dinner at Five Guys with my friends Megan and Lindsay. I lived in D.C. in the Fall of 2006 and will always love this city. Hopefully I'll be able to come back more often as the future progresses.