Doc Chey's Noodle House

OK, all of you who live out west will just have to come and visit to get a taste of Doc Chey's amazing noodles. But this place is great, it is like an amazing Thai/Chinese restaurant without the fried stuff! A few great things about the place you ask??

• Atmosphere - the tables are made of concrete with cool stones in them.
• Instead of numbers, they give you words like PEACE, JOY, LOVE, SPIRIT, TRANQUILITY etc. so they know who to bring your food to.
• At lunch you order at the bar and then sit down, at night you sit and order.
• You can get an amazing, healthy, interesting lunch or dinner for under $8.
• Did I mention, the good, healthy, interesting, spicy (doesn't have to be), food??

So, all that to say, if you are ever in the area, this is not one to miss!

Kaffe Merchantile

right now i am sitting at my new favorite coffee shop, the kaffe merchantile. First of all, it is an add on to a house on 26th, 1/2 block up from harrison blvd. This fact makes it feel a bit more small town, and a lot less like typical utah. anyway, the whole place is set with 1920s style, complete with music. The prices are similar to every other coffee shop so it won't hurt your pocket book. They even have a patio made of cedar with walls for privacy, very nice. They sell homemade products and bread mixes. If you buy a can of coffee you can get it refilled for a 2 dollar discount. anyway, i'll let you come experience it for yourself. be warned, the seats are a bit uncomfortable and there are not many tables (4 inside, 3 outside). i enjoy it very much, check it out!

"water pump" at gold's gym

i have a membership to gold's gym. lanie and i go to the new gym on 23rd and washington. we have been going to a body pump class on mondays, and it is really hard! not in the sense of a good workout, but in the sense that we always feel like we are doing it wrong even if i am doing the exact form the instructor is doing. we have been sore for weeks in the same spot on our shoulders. anyway, long story short, we were looking for something different... we found water pump!

it's a class in the pool with aerobic workout and weights. today was our first day. we walked in, and there was the instructor who looks like she's about 30, and 10 other ladies who are all above 55! it was so fun, and surprisingly really hard. have you ever tried to do jumping jacks in the water? i laughed so much, and my thighs will be sore tomorrow! we went down to the "deep" end of the pool (5ft.) and toned our muscles with weights that float and provide resistance under the water. after that we did abs on the side of the pool. i remember doing things like that when i was younger just for fun, but this time it really was a workout. we held on to the side of the pool facing in and lifted our legs forwards and sideways, and every other way. it was good for the abs.

anyway, i give the class an A! it was really fun yet very challenging, also a good way to start out a friday morning! i will be so sad when i start work because the class is at 8:30 so i won't be able to go, but until then, come join us, it was a blast.

The Breakup

In the movie vein... Drew and I watched "The Break-up" with Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn. The story is amusing although a little bland and predictable, but I didn't like the ending at all. I don't want to ruin it for you, but suffice it to say that if you are looking for a happy ending this is not the movie for you. And that is all I have to say about that. So there is your review in a nut-shell. :)

L

my spidey senses are going crazy!

Super-man 3... it was good. a little bit of romance, jealousy, envy, comedy, revenge, action--it has it all. seriously folks, it was really good. at first it seemed like there was too many plots, and too much stuff going on, but it was all tied together in the end. the scenes with MJ and Peter were good, and it had some great action scenes, but the very last one was the best. i would give it 4 out of 5 stars. go see it. now.
that is all.

Striders

My leg feels much better from my running injury back at the end of february, so I thought I would go get some new running shoes. I went down to Striders in Layton. This was not a mistake.

When I got there someone helped me right away. The first thing they did was analyze my feet. Sounds a little wierd but basically you step on this mat and it shows you where the pressure is on your feet on a computer screen. Then you walk on it and it shows an animation of how the pressure is applied to your foot when you walk or run. So cool. That part was worth the whole trip.

Turns out I have flexible feet. I guess that means that shoes with more stability are good for me.

They also measured my feet. I've never had my feet measured before. I found out that my left foot is a half size bigger than my right! Also I learned that I have been buying my shoes too small. (No wonder my toenails fall off!)

Then I tried on like 8 pairs of shoes. Thye just kept giving me more and more pairs. I would try one on then go run on the treadmill. It was great. They even showed me a better way to tie my shoes!

I got a great pair of shoes for under 100 bucks. Mizunos.

Can't wait to go running in them tomorrow.

So if you need a new pair of shoes, or just want to see a cool computer animation of how pressure is applied to your feet as you walk, go to Striders!

(If you buy 10 pair you get the next pair free! The whole family is included!)

A Collision

my sick review is going to be on one of the greatest bands of all time. The David Crowder Band. i heard one of the songs on the radio today, and it reminded me of how great this CD is. seriously it's amazing! they also have a second CD called "B Collision." they play the same songs, but in a different way. it's just as good as "A Collision" especially if you like the blue grass style, bajo playing, "boom-chuck, boom-chuck" kind of music. check it out.
that is all.

the "grid" system

people have a tendency to stick to what they are accustomed to. but sometimes they just go too far in defending their status quo. that's right, i'm talking about the utah 'grid' system and people who call you on the phone just to defend it.

there is a grid system in lots of towns and states. it makes sense for cities and suburbia. if you've ever tried to drive in boston, you've wished that the founding fathers or whoever built bean town would have tried a grid. its a nightmare. i'm used to third street or fifth ave. i don't have a problem with those. but the utah numbering system is just impossible.

utah has decided that each town would be built on a grid system. in salt lake the center of the grid is the temple. so it works even better if you are a mormon because you can just drive till the numbers all go down and you are there. but they just take it too far. addresses end up sounding like coordinates in space, not just right down the street. people have addresses like 1050 s 1200 w. does that make any sense to you? probably not, unless you live in utah. but it doesn't take too much work to figure it out. heres a website on it.

so obviously if you are heading west you'll cross 11oo w then 1200 w. yeah, the streets aren't named after the direction they are going but the position they are in relative to coordinates 0,0. so you can be on 100s but you are travelling east. also if the street changes direction the street name changes. also if you go to the next town the numbers start over.

o yeah, and 100 s can be called 1st. so don't confuse 100th s with 100 s. (100th s = 10000 s).

this all breaks down if you live in a town that doesn't have a grid (like dear old epping, my hometown) but thats beside the point because that wasn't in utah.

the problem with the "grid" system isn't the grid. it makes sense, it just takes getting used to and you have to learn the terminology. the problem is that you can never remember where anything is. you have to know where you are going to get there. if you know the address you are golden. you can navigate very easily.

but who can remember all those numbers?!

i don't know the address of anything. i've worked in the same place for two years, written the address down a million times, but i just can't remember the numbers. ask anyone where anything is and they will always resort to how the rest of the world works. "i live on custer between 21st and 2nd street." they don't use the address. no one remembers the address. you don't say that the pie pizzeria is at 1050 s 1200 e. (it has a real address but no one knows it becuase they've renamed the streets that go north south). they say its on harrison and 42nd, just like they would anywhere else. utahns themselves don't even use it.

so utahns, don't try to defend the system you don't even use. it may be helpful when you know the exact address, but we seldom do. numbers are too hard to remember so we use words like harrison, washington, custer, orchard park, rancho vista, riverdale and the list goes on.

A Review of Abingdon, VA

Drew & I went to Abingdon, VA this past weekend. For those of you who have never heard of Abingdon (which I never had until Drew told me we were going), it is a tiny little town in southern VA off of Interstate 81, and it is home to the VA State Playhouse, Barter Theatre. It is called the Barter Theatre because the man who started it would give people tickets in exchange for food. The first year they took in only $5.35 but were given tons of veges, hams, fruit etc. We liked the play Friday night so much we saw another one on Saturday. We stayed at the Martha Washington Inn.

For those of you who are of the younger generation, you may have experienced the same thing... walking into a hotel (or a nice restaurant) and being looked on as if you were some sort of alien, like "how dare you twerp walk in to this nice establishment, you don't have nearly enough money to be here!" Well not at the Martha Washington! Andrew checked us in, in jeans and a t-shirt, and they were very very kind, and even made our dinner reservations for us before the play that night! And when they saw me with my nose ring ( stud, not an actual ring) they didn't even bat an I, and still treated me like a human being.

So all that to say, if you are ever in the area, I HIGHLY recommend the Martha Washington Inn, and the Barter Theatre.

L

seth's happy 10,000nth

Last night i attended a party at seth and jen's. seth's 10,000nth day old party. i have to say it was the best, and only 10,000nth day old party i've ever been to. in fact the thought of being 10,000 days old never even entered my mind. but seth has a program that will tell you when you will be 10,000 days old and his day was yesterday. i think it is something like 27 years and 138 days if you were born before leap day of 1980. but the party was great. seth was tricked into thinking he had to come home to get some blood drawn. (he's terrified of getting poked, but not much as mat who started to sweat when we started talking about needles) but it was a surprise party and a whole ton of people came. jen made some awesome food (mexican), some of which i now own and keep in my fridge. she made some black bean, avacado, pepper, cilantro, other stuff, dip and it was super good. then we had brownies, cake, or both, and ice cream. it was pretty fun. after dinner i played hide and seek, and made "neckwesses" that went on our hands. can't say i've done either of those for quite a long time either. all in all it was a pretty good party. lots of good food, lots of nerd/engineer talk that mostly went way over my head, and lots of babies going crazy over things like balloons and ribbon. so thanks seth and jen.

hiking above ogden

before you read on, i would like to clarify what part of ogden i am refering to. you are probably thinking ogden like above weber state and mount ogden park right? well i'm not. i am talking about above ogden like above ben lomond high and ninth street. are you with me now? well you will be soon.

the scene is 3pm at my house (pete and amy). carrie and micah are also in this scene. if you were out yesterday, it was beautiful outside. 55F was the average temp. calculated by my built in thermometer. earlier that day we had decided to go for a hike, but were at a loss as to where would be a dry, non-muddy area. the rain the three days before was hindering our dreams of spring hiking, but the area above my house was surprisingly dry.

okay, now you are with me, and here we go. we started out walking/strolling casually along, and we ended up at this area of rocks/cliffs that i wanted to take pictures of. so i took a few (coming soon to another blog near you) and we moved on. i was talking the whole time with carrie because pete and micah were always ahead of us; as we were walking and talking, i realized that we were not going in the direction of my house (down) we were still going up. i asked what the deal was, and pete said he would like to go further. i finally complied after much complaint, and we went on a little further.

this pattern of continuing on, finding a cool picture spot, walking, realizing it is the "wrong" way, asking what the deal is, and continuing on happened up until we were half way between our house and 12th street. at which time we collectively decided to continue on until we reached 12th and mike could drive us back.

as we went on we kept getting higher, which means we would eventually have to go back down (easier than it sounds). we also blazed our own trail a couple of times, micah and pete found a cool cave with some really weird poop of some kind up on a ledge, we saw some crazy climbers at 9th street, and carrie twisted her already messed up ankle 3 "blocks" from our destination and continued on.

so, if you have a bit of spring fever, and the weather is right. i recommend hiking above ogden (the 12 and below numbers). also pete thinks it would make a pretty good mountain bike trail (the underlying reason we went all the way to 12th). so call us next time, we are pros now.

actual time went from around 3pm to 5pm. we covered an area of 22 "blocks" which pete thinks is only 3 miles. have a wonderful night/day whenever you read this.

Tona

Glendon wanted to go out for sushi last week but he had to work the weekend and nights that whole week. so this week we decided to go and went to tona. jesse, mat w, glendon and i. (micah) we had a good time and the sushi was great. i think the best roll was mats "hot lava." i had the salmon teri maki. whatever that is. and the unagi roll. i probably butchered the spelling on all that but thats ok. sushi was great...yeah yeah and now to the good part of the story. mat was super excited that they had green tea ice cream! so he bought some. and i don't know if it was him getting desert or the fact that one of glendon's airmans wives told him to get cheese cake but glendon got some cheese cake. now let me set the scene. there we are. 4 cups of ice water. about half an inch of water in the bottom of each. a bit to my left about in the middle of the table is a tiny little plate with some pickled ginger and a pile of wasabi about the size of a very large almond m&m. So glendon says to me, "hey micah, what would it take for you to eat that wasabi?" i said, "a piece of cheese cake on you." "thats all?" "yeah." "you're on." "what are the rules?" "you have to put it in your mouth for at least three seconds before swallowing then no water for ten more seconds." "deal." so i tossed it in my chompers. it was aweful! it's that asian spicy that goes straight up through your nose to your brain. not only that, when i tried to swallow, i couldn't! it is like trying to swallow a mixture of dry cracker crumbs mixed into peanut butter. it just got stuck in my throat. i started gagging but i choked out the words. "start counting!" so i got to ten and drank my water. then glendon's. then mat's. then jesse's. then i ate the ice out of most of the cups before the girl came back. i asked for water then drank mine and somebody elses too. it was pretty sick if i do say so. well i wiped the wasabi/spit junk off my mouth and chin then ate my cheese cake. it was amazing! so good. well finally we finished and i noticed that i still had the taste of wasabi. it sunk in deep. so i guess glendon won in the end. thats tona. eat there.

Kobe

wednesday night sarah and i went out to Kobe...its that place that you all drive by on your way to got coffee. it has a huge sign and you probably have never been there...yeah thats the one. the place was awesome! it's a japanese steak and sushi bar so you sit around a big bar and your chef makes all your food right there in front of you. the cool part is that he is good at flipping knives and food and he's pretty funny too. the food was even more amazing than the chef too. it started with soup and a salad. i liked the soup, sarah liked the salad. then the chef came out and made fried rice and noodles. (i got noodles, sarah, fried rice) and both were the best i have ever had from any chinese/japanese place. the guy was spinning the egg on his spatula and tossing it in the air and stuff then he tossed it and caught it on the spatula sideways so it cracked open, but the shell stayed on the spatula..it was sick. he made more fried rice than he needed so i got some of that too. it was a good deal all around. then he made shimp and i don't know what he put on them but they were so good. sarah ate all 3 of hers! shrimp was part of my meal so i got a bunch more. but i ate all of it because all i ate that day was a bowl of cereal. finally he got to our main meal. i had fillet mignon and sarah got teriyaki steak with peppers and onions. both were great. and finally he made everybody stir fried vegetables. he also put alcohol all over the counter and lit it. that was cool. the place was super fun. a bit on the expensive side but worth going at least once.

the new way to shop...

i am starting to become an online shopper...
it's actually really fun. you can search for everything, and buy anything! i like it a lot. the prices are way good, but sometimes i start to miss that shopping feeling that apparently only girls get when we walk around stores seeing all the different clothing options, reading price tags, going from store-to-store, you know--the usual...well, if you are an onling shopper like me, then check out AMAZON.COM it's the best! i bought a CD for 5 bucks! do it now!

SUPER Party

Superbowl parties are often a gamble. You might end up at the really lame superbowl party with some chips and and a couple of guys who are WAY into the game or else sleeping. Or there's the insane superbowl party that is really just a reason to get drunk.

So if you are looking for a sure bet, go to the Massie's parties.

First of all the Massies are great for any party. They are incredibly welcoming and fun to hang out with, even if they are almost old enough to be your parents. (I said almost!) They'll play games, quote from movies, or sing along to some really great tunes. (Try challenging Rod to a game of name that tune.) They are just great people.

Their house is great too. Very warm and cozy with lots of different places to hang out.

So parties are always fun there.

But here's why their superbowl party is the best: It's two parties in one. They've got one upstairs for people who have to be quiet during the game. You know, people who are really into it. And downstairs is another party where you probably only have to be quiet during the commericials, and not even then. You know, people who aren't really into the game. Now you don't have to get stuck at one or the other either. You can move back and forth, you just have to know the rules. I'm not going to go upstairs and start a game of Yatzee, and no one is going to come downstairs and tell us to shut up and watch the game. Everyone is free to mix and mingle.

The food is great. Food upstairs and down. Not just a bunch of stuff picked up from the store, but some delicious homemade superbowl food. And beverages. Soda, or beer (Corona was the beer of choice, although I brought some Killians and some chocolate stout from Roosters.)

So I mostly stayed downstairs, where I worked on my essay (they also have wireless internet). Some people played pool. We started a game of "Marbles" (a Massie original as far as I know, complete with hand carved board.) There was also some Wii action going on and a game of fusball broke out between some twenty somethings and some dad's of twenty somethings.

Overall a very fun party. I highly recommend you work a Massie party into your busy social schedules. And check out the newly refurbished downstairs. I hear that one of the guys who painted down there is "excellent."

my coffee

I went to Got Coffee to do a little bit of internet stuff that i needed to do. and like always i was planning on getting the tea. probably mint. so i was standing there trying to decide between mint and black current. well this girl asked me what i wanted. i said i would be a minute because i didn't know yet. "i can help you decide, i'm pretty good at that." "sure what's good today?" bla bla bla...she told me to get a latte with caramel and cinnamon. i did and it was pretty good. it was kinda like a caramel macchiato but less sweet and more latte like. my favorite thing is usually a latte anyway, that or a breve. anyway the point of the story is that if you are at Got Coffee and can't decide what you want...you might want to try it. it’s pretty good.

shin sei

last night jesse asked me if i wanted to go get sushi so i decided to go. i also called mat who came straight from his run. we went to this little place called shin sei. i don't know if thats how you spell it but it looks close. anyway it was a pretty cool place and the sushi was good too. but going out for sushi is more than just food. i had the "new yorker." but i ended up trading with a bunch of people for some volcano rolls and philidelphias. its kinda like trading pokemon cards. they were all pretty good. but probably one of the best things about last night, or any time you go out for sushi, is watching the noobie. last night it was kelli. she got some pretty crazy rolls for a first time and it was quite comical to see her sticking them in her mouth. and of course jesse told her she had to do it in one bite. lastly sushi is fun because you can order rolls like the "black dragon" or "white wizard" and lots of other crazy things, and they look even more scary when they come. so it's like a mini adrenaline rush just to eat sushi. and thats about all i have to say about that... we had blast. just make sure you get a snack before you go...you save lots of money that way.
-micah

Case for Christ by Lee Strobel

I read Case for Christ over christmas break and i really liked it. for somebody who grew up in a christian "environment" it was cool to see all the issues/problems that people have with christianity. i never even realized that some of these issues could be deciding factors in whether or not people choose to believe in the gospel. (things like NT archiology or how consistant the bible is with secular history) but i talked with a friend and he said that NT archiology was a big deal when he was looking at christianity. i have never thought about it like that. after i believed i went back to make sure it lined up but i never checked into it before. now i need to say that 2000 year old rocks and ruins and studies of cultures should be the reason you follow Christ. there is much more to it than that, but i think all that stuff has a place. overall it was a pretty good book. i enjoyed it.
micah

How it works...

This is the new blog that i (micah) made for reviews...your reviews. book reviews, restaurant reviews, movie reviews, or anything else that you think deserves a review. but to post on this blog you need to post a comment leaving me your name and email so i can add you to the authors list. then you can rant and rage about how dumb some book is so that other people can read and say hey...i liked it. or you can say how awesome a book is. or how much you loved your devil's spit hamburger from Famous Dave's! so other people can go try it and share in your experience. anyway..i hope you like it.