I've got blisters on my fingers!

I've always wanted to learn how to play the guitar. But do I have a guitar? No. I do, however, have a ukulele. Which is even better than a guitar. The last couple days I have been extremely bored just sitting around the apartment, so I decided I would work on my ukulele playing abilities. The only problem with playing the ukulele instead of the guitar is that most songs are not originally played on the ukulele. (Except for NeverShoutNever, which I have been learning some of their songs.) So I've been looking up the guitar chords for a bunch of songs and just transferring it to the ukulele. My repertoire of songs includes Rocky Raccoon - The  Beatles, One - U2, Did it hurt - NeverShoutNever, FM Radio - Joshua James, and many others. My favorite song that I can play though, is Harrisburg - Josh Ritter. Yes, it is supposed to be played on the guitar, so it sounds a little funny. However it is the best I can do.

I recorded just a little sample of it for you to hear, and no I am not singing along so you will just have to imagine the words.

Pretty great, right?
(wow, weird thing happened to this video. The sound is right, but the video is playing double time, so it cuts off the end of the audio. Also It look like I'm playing really fast, which as much as I would like to be able to play that fast, I'm not really.)

The only problem is, due to the fact that I have excessively been playing the ukulele, my fingers really hurt!

Fan. Freakin. Tastic.

As many of you may know, I am obsessed with Spencer Russell. He has the most beautiful voice I have ever heard. (Besides Matt Bellamy of course) This weekend I had the privilege to return to my homeland and journey back to good old Pleasant Grove High just to see him perform. He was marvelous, to say the least. The bands that performed before him were great too. The first guy, Jacob Windley, was so funny. He was wearing a fanny pack with the BYU insignia on it, it cracked me up! Bri Bird and the Palace Flophouse were fantastic, but none can compare to the amazing Spencer Russell.

I know I already posted a Spencer Russell song on my music board, but he is just so awesome that here is another:

A-mazing!

Planking

I was just watching the new episode of the Office, (Which was great by the way) and in the beginning of it they were all planking. I really don't understand the obsession with planking. I mean it looks kind of cool but how did it ever become this big? What I really want to know is how did it even start. Did someone really just think "Hey, I bet it would look cool if I lied flat like a plank and took a picture"? Alright, so I understand some planking, but some people are just stupid about it. Is it really worth your life just to get a picture of you planking in a cool place? I don't think so.

Oh well, if they were stupid enough to do it, the least we can do is enjoy it:

Zelda

What does one pen, one sketch pad, an obsession for Zelda, and way to much time on your hands equal?

THIS!

Tattoo!

Before I start I just want to clarify, I will NEVER get a tattoo. Despite how cool some of them may look, the absolute permanence thing is a turn off. That and I am absolutely terrified of needles.

However, lately I've been kind of obsessing over tattoo designs. I think it all started when we were watching L.A. Ink (due to the fact that nothing else was on T.V.) and I was asked the question: "If you were to ever get a tattoo what would it be?" Everybody else had a good answer, even though most of us would never actually get a tattoo, but I couldn't think of anything.

The other day, Amanda and I went to the multicultural club meeting and they were doing henna tattoos.
So of course we got some.

This says "Laugh" in Korean

This one you can't really see very well, and it ends up just looking like a bunch on freckles on my hand, but it was supposed to be a a cool flower.

How cool was this, I could now have a tattoo that would wash off in about a week so I would never have to worry about getting sick of it. So of course I become obsessed with looking up tattoo designs.

These were some of my favorite I found.

I love this one! Except for the fact that it is huge.

This is probably the coolest tattoo I have ever seen in my life. For those of you who don't understand the awesomeness of this tattoo, the lyrics are to a song by Muse (My favorite band) and inside the flowers is the design from their latest album cover. Freakin' awesome, right?

My other obsession at the moment is Zelda. I have been playing it all the time lately. So two obsessions at the same time, what do I do with them? Combine them! I started designing my own zelda tattoos! And they turned out pretty sweet, if I do say so myself.

Behold:

Design 1: Pretty cool, I'm proud of it.

Design 2: I can't get over how cool this one is, I love it!

So once again, I just want to say that I'm not getting a tattoo. I am just enjoying designing them.

A Friend

an original poem by McKenna Horman

WHAT DOES IT MEAN
TO BE A FRIEND?
IT IS SOMEONE WHO WILL STICK WITH YOU
UNTIL THE END

A TRUE FRIEND IS THERE
IN A TIME OF NEED
WHO WILL TELL YOU THEIR THOUGHTS
AND IN RETURN, YOUR'S THEY WILL HEED

THEY ENJOY YOUR PRESENCE
AND FOR IT THEY YERN
AND WHEN YOU ARE APART
QUICKLY THEY'LL RETURN

YOU GIVE TO THEM
AND THEY GIVE TO YOU
ALL THAT THEY HAVE
AND WHAT THEY DON'T, TOO

THERE IS NO SUCH THING
AS CONVENIENCE, OR EASE
THEY WILL DROP EVERYTHING IN A SECOND
IF YOU ARE IN NEED

FRIENDS LOVE
FRIENDS LAUGH
THEY CRY
THEY HURT
BUT THEY DO IT TOGETHER
AND THAT'S ALL THAT MATTERS

WHILE OTHERS COME AND GO
AS YOU TRAVEL THROUGH LIFE
A TRUE FRIEND WILL ALWAYS BE THERE
THROUGH JOY AND THROUGH STRIFE

I am so thankful for those "true" friends of mine. I have had many friends come and go throughout my life, but thanks to those of you who have stuck around.

Welcome, Welcome, Sabbath Morning!

Sacrament meeting in college can be quite the adventure. While singing the song Welcome, welcome, sabbath morning, Amanda pointed out that the song always reminded her of the song all the Who's sang together around the tree in "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". You know, the one that goes: Da-who Dor-ay, da-who dor-ay, welcome Christmas, Christmas day. (or something like that) So of course we all end up holding hands and swaying back and forth as we sang. We came up with the idea to show up to church early next sunday, join hands around a tree out front, and welcome everyone to church with our singing.

It's not going to happen, but it was a funny thought.

"Habing Fun"

The thing I love most about my friends, is they way we always come up with random spur of the moment things to do. Like last night, for example. Me and my dear friends Gratten and Amanda ended up getting caught outside, across campus from our apartment in a gigantic storm. Rain was pouring down, and the lightning was so close it lit up the entire night as it flashed. Frantically we ran to the shelter of the Sigma Chi house, (The Fraternity Gratten is a part of) but we weren't fast enough. By the time we got there our clothes were completely soaked. Me and Amanda had to end up borrowing some of Gratten's clothes.

Tangent - 

Gratten gave me and Amanda the same Sigma Chi t-shirt to wear that say's "Having fun since 1885." I tend to make fun of this t-shirt all the time, because the font they chose makes it look like it says "habing" instead of "having." 

But anyways, we all got in the mood to watch Atlantis so we went to Wal-mart in search of the movie. That was what we planned to do, what ended up happening was we bought a pizza and soda, bought the movie Corpse Bride, and had a 2:00 in the morning movie party. 

It is the little moments like this that make my life as wonderful as it is. I have the best friends in the world.

P.S. Me and Amanda are still wearing the Sigma Chi shirts, we were just far to lazy to change. (And we wish we could be part of Sigma Chi)

My Hipster/Indie Day

Today was a great day. I felt like a true hipster. I spent the day hanging out at a cute little local coffee shop called the Grind. It is one of the my favorite places ever. The store is filled with tables and chairs of all different shapes and sizes, a white grand piano, and local art work on the walls. Connected to the coffee shop is a used book store. We spent hours looking through the store and reminiscing about our favorite childhood books, as well as point out some of our new favorites. I turned on my Indie music and took a nap after class. Later I went and listened to an artist named Grant Fuhst talk about his work. His art was. . . interesting to say the least. Some of his stuff was quiet disturbing and creepy. Although there was something about his style that I liked. Over all it was a great day. As a plus I even made a new friend! But that's another story for another day.

The Grind

This is one of Grant's more mellow pieces.

The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe

Lately I've kind of given up on doing my hair. I'm just way to lazy to even straighten it. So I've just been letting it air dry however it wants. Also, with all the rain lately my hair just gets messed up anyways, so whats the point in doing it in the first place? Last night while I was getting ready for bed, I was looking in the mirror at my hair and It reminded me of a girl I knew in high school. I won't name names, but this girl's hair was seriously a mane. I then thought to myself "Wow, I'm starting to acquire a mane just like (Insert name here)" I then proceeded to look closer in the mirror, only to discover a series of zits forming on my face. "Great" I thought "I've got the lion, now the witch, and. . ." I looked down at my oversized t-shirt, which is pretty much all I wear. "the wardrobe!"

You're Such a Fruit. . .

. . . the good kind though. A mango.

Everybody always tells me that you should never go to the grocery store when you are hungry. This is so true. When ever I go to the store hungry I am tempted to buy almost everything in sight. The other day I went to the store while I was starving. Mistake! I was drooling over the baked goods for about an hour. Thankfully I was able to resist the temptation. I was not so strong when it came to the produce section though. I finally caved when I came across the most beautifully delicious fruit I have ever had the pleasure to taste: A mango. At least it is healthy, right? Or at least thats how I justified it.

However I was not able to eat the mango that day due to the fact that it was not completely ripe. And I wanted my mango to be so ripe that juice was spilling out the sides. So I set it on the counter and waited patiently for it to ripen. I cannot tell you how freaking excited I was today when I discovered it was ready to eat. This was probably the greatest moment of my life so far.

Best. Dollar. Ever. Spent.

Rain, Rain, Don't go away

I woke up this morning, looked out the window, and my heart leapt for joy. Another rainy day. It has been raining almost all week and I absolutely love it. I don't know what it is about the rain, or better yet thunder storms, that make me so happy. There is something very comforting about the low rumble of thunder, or the pitter patter of rain on the window. I enjoy nothing more then coming in from playing in the rain, changing into some dry sweats, and curling up on the couch with a blanket and a cup of hot chocolate/Apple cider. I enjoy rainy days so much that I even created a playlist on my ipod specially for them. Put a rainy day and these carefully selected songs together and something magical happens. True, for some people the combination might seem a bit depressing, but for me it has a calming effect.

Some of my rainy day favorites are:

Muse - Shine (acoustic)
The Shins - New Slang
Broken Bells - The Ghost Inside
Death Cab for Cutie - Bixby Canyon Bridge
Josh Ritter - Harrisburg
Mumford and Sons - Thistle and Weeds

just to name a few

I sincerely hope that this rain continues. I could go for another week of this.

Penny, the Platypus

She lives!
Penny the platypus is now finished. She is adorable. We named her penny to be perry the platypus' girlfriend, and penny and perry fit very well together. True, penny is also the name of my dog, as Nick pointed out. (As if I didn't already know) I am quite proud of Penny. She has become our new apartment mascot. She sits lovingly on our living room table and brings joy to all who see her.

You can't really tell by the pictures, but she is a beauty.

Hand Dancing

I have never been a dancer.
I took a few dance classes as a kid, and lets face it, I was not born to dance. Although recently in my boredom induced browsing of the internet, I came across a new and unique form of dancing. This type of dance was appropriately named: Hand Dancing. Due to the fact that you sit in a chair and they only thing you really move is your hands. (well arms too, if you want to get technical) It is basically tap dancing with your hands! Apparently there are these two people who are professional hand dancers. Their names are Suzanne Cleary and Peter Harding. They are amazing! Check them out:

Due to their awesomeness, me and Amanda decided we should learn how to hand dance. But let me tell you, you thought this looked hard? Trust me, it's harder than it looks. After our fruitless efforts of trying to learn this dance, we decided to go with an easier version:

I'm not really sure why, but we found this extremely funny!

As significantly easier then the original this one is, I still struggle with it. Although after hours of practice, and the floor below us complaining that people were tap dancing above them, ("there were some. . . tap dancers in the hallway") we are getting there. Our hope is to become good enough that we can perform this for Vaudeville. Most people probably will not think it is as funny as we do, especially if they haven't seen the original, but we will get a kick out of it. And that's all that matters. Hopefully if we do perform this we will be able to film it, and I will put it up for the world to see.

FAIL!

I have recently discovered that 2D art and 3D art take two completely different sets of skills. I am taking a 3D design class in school, which i thought would be very fun. I was wrong. For our first project we had to make some sort of structure with "Implied volume." Sounds easy? That's what I thought.


Being the poor college student that I am, I wanted to use the cheapest materials I could possibly find.
Now what could I use that would be plentiful and free of cost? . . .


. . . STICKS! I could just glue a bunch of sticks together right? Wrong. Sticks and hot glue are apparently not friends. It was a mess. . . wire got involved. . . and the end was a disaster.


I ultimately failed.

This was supposed to be a wave?

In discussing the future of my artwork with my dear friend Nickless, we decided that it would make a great bathroom decoration. Better yet, a toilet plunger holder!

My beautiful sculpture is now currently caging Amanda's wet shoes. 

I'm really glad that I was able to make a visually appealing, yet functional piece of art! 

I am improving though, or so I hope. This time I decided that sticks were 'no bueno' and that I would just stick with the wire.

And so I made a Platypus.

She is not done yet, but so far it is quite the improvement.

Hopefully I will continue to improve on my journey to master all four elements:

Wire

Wood

Clay

Cardboard

I WILL be the 3D design avatar!