Shadows

So we were teaching this guy Dave, he’s super cool. And every time we would go over there, like, everything just fell into our lap, it was like, we would go over and he would be like ‘guys I’m thinkin’ I wanna know where I go after I die’ and everything was just perfect, but we went over one time and it was pretty late, we usually didn’t go over to his house late. And he was just, he was out of his mind. He wanted to kill himself, it was just a really bad situation and we were trying to talk, I was trying to teach him, and there just wasn’t anything good there. So we got out, and I was training a new missionary, and he-uh, as soon as we got out he asked me ‘dude I don’t know what’s going on, but I do not feel good’ and I felt the same way, so we hopped on our bikes and we started heading home, and it’s probably about two miles home. And we passed the town square and I just had this really bad feeling. And I kept looking back at him and every time I looked back, I could see these shadows in the trees that were following him and then as soon as we passed town square, I looked back and we started down this row of trees and one of ‘em came down and knocked him off his bike. So I had to come back and I went and got him and it was choking him, it was crazy. It was on top of him choking him, he couldn’t breathe. So, it sounds kinda cheesy, we started singing hymns. We got back on our bikes and started going and it felt like they were pushing us forward like the world behind us was folding over top of itself, over top of us, and it was pushing us off our bikes. And they kept showing up in front of us, like they, everything was folding in over top of us and then those shadows, they had faces that were kinda sketchy, but they kept showing up in front of us, so we had to ride between us to get home. It was probably the scariest thing that ever happened to me on my mission

Iron Accident

So I don’t remember what we were doing that night honestly, but me and Andrew both got back to the apartment at like 2 A.M. after hanging out with...whatever we were doing, and so obviously I’m like half awake at that point and so we go to bed and I’m asleep and I wake up to, like, a pain in my face, like my head was in pain. I was like, ‘what the heck??’and it was like, I dunno, like that weird fog when you’re waking up and you don’t really know what’s going on, but for some reason my face hurt. And I like roll over in my bed and my iron was laying next to me and it kinda like slowly, I was like connecting, in my brain what happened and I was like ‘no way…’. And so I get up out of bed and walk into the bathroom and I look into the mirror and there’s just blood running down my face. And so at that point I started saying lots of naughty words [chuckles a bit] and I walk back into the room and I didn’t know what to do ‘cause it was like 4 A.M. at this point and so yeah, I cut my face open with my iron ‘cause it fell on my head, ‘cause there was a shelf above the beds and I had left it up there and left it unrolled, so I guess I had snagged the cord while I was sleeping and it fell and cut me on my eyebrow. So, I’m like kinda freaking out and I accidentally woke Andrew [Andrew was his roommate who is a medic for the army] up with my word choice and he wakes up and and looks at me and he’s like ‘what’s going on?’ and I turned my face and showed him and he jumped out of bed and he was like, well I got kinda dizzy and I don’t know why, I guess I’m kind of a wimp, but I kinda had to sit down on my bed because I was really kinda nauseous. So he told me, he’s like ‘stay awake! I’m gonna go down to my car and get my med kit.’ [he said this with a funny deep voice, trying to imitate Andrew]. He goes and gets his giant chest, you know you’ve seen it [he says this to me because I have indeed seen it]. But yeah I think he thought I was gonna like, die before he got to the room because he’s like ‘Stay awake!’ [same imitation] and I was like ‘ok??’. So he goes and get his big ol’ med kit and he’s got like, a bone saw and like everything in there, [laughs like he’s remembering how funny this is]. So yeah, he comes back, he’s like ‘dude I have stuff for sutures, I could sew you up’ [imitating Andrew in a funny voice again] and I was all, ‘have you ever done that before?’ And he was like ‘no, but I have a video of my brother getting stitches!’ [more imitations] and I was like, ‘uh, hold on’. So I called my dad at, like 4 A.M. which is never a good idea, obviously your parents don’t wanna get a call from any child in the middle of the night. So I call him, and I don’t know I guess I’m still kind of like half asleep, the first question I ask him is whether I should go to the hospital or not, like no context whatsoever and he’s like ‘well I don’t know son’ [he imitates his dad now, in a funny voice]. So I sent him a picture and he’s like ‘yeah you should probably go to the hospital’ and I was like, ‘well my roommate can sew me up, he has all the stuff’ and so my dad asks the same question, he’s like ‘has he ever done it before?’ and I was like, ‘no but he has a video’ [he says this kind of sheepishly] and he’s like ‘go to the hospital’ [he says this pretty matter-of-factly and then laughs]. So we went to the hospital and they, you know numbed me up, cleaned it up, sewed it up, and I kinda just sat there and listened to Brian Reegan’s ER sketch about ‘8, say 8’ while we were in the ER room and it was kinda funny. I woke up and it was kinda a bad experience, but once we go to the ER room, it was kinda just like, I can’t believe this happened, that’s hilarious and then so I got back home and went to bed and I think we got back at 6 and I woke up at 8 so it was like a solid 2 hour nap...so yeah it was a pretty rowdy night

West Nile Virus activity in central Iowa bird populations and the utility of wildlife rehabilitation centers in monitoring wildlife disease

Little is known about the frequency or occurrence of West Nile Virus (WNV) in many Iowa wildlife species, including birds. The lack of knowledge about WNV in Iowa birds is partially due to difficulties associated with monitoring wildlife health. We evaluated the utility of wildlife rehabilitation centers for providing information about wildlife health and disease monitoring, and assessed where on the central Iowa landscape birds have the highest risk of exposure to WNV. Our results indicated that wildlife rehabilitation facilities have the potential to provide useful information about wildlife disease presence and prevalence. Additionally, we found that a bird\u27s risk of WNV exposure increased in urban areas, and that risk of exposure was different between years (potentially due to weather), and among taxa, where the Cardinalidae had the highest WNV seroprevalence. Overall, our findings provide insights regarding WNV activity in central Iowa bird populations

Skinwalker Ranch

So, in rural Utah, there’s this place called Skinwalker Ranch. And on this ranch, it’s pretty well known that there are some weird things that happen in regards to humans there. And nobody knows exactly what goes on in this place, but one time this group of high school kids, being high school kids, drive up on the ridge that is on the east end of the ranch, (I think it’s the east, I’m not positive), and they’re out away from the ranch a little ways, but if you park your car along the side of the road, and off the dirt path or whatever on the road there on top of this ridge, and you walk out to the edge of the ridge, you can look down and see Skinwalker Ranch. You can look and see what’s going on down there. And so this group of kids went up and did that, they parked their SUV, a little ford explorer type vehicle, along, off to the side where if a police officer happened to be driving down the dirt road, they wouldn’t have been able to see it. And so they go there, park the car, and they walk to the edge of this ridge, by the end of the fence or whatever that’s the edge of Skinwalker Ranch. They’re looking down and they can’t see much, they can’t hear much. There’s no flashing lights, no weird noises or anything, so they’re kinda disappointed and they stay there for the first half hour and nothing happens, they’re there for an hour and they don’t see anything, and some of their friends are getting frustrated and so they after and hour or two, however long they decided, they headed back to the car and just retraced their footsteps and the dust, in the sand there, and they come across where the car was parked and they can see the tracks up to where the car was parked, but the car was gone. And they were close enough that they would’ve been able to hear it if it started. But for whatever reason, the car has just vanished, and these friends, they look at each other and they have no idea what to think or what to do and ‘course they’re out of cell service, so they can’t call anybody for help or call the police or something, so they start heading back and they start retracing the tracks, they’re gonna head back to the highway where someone can pick ‘em up hopefully and give ‘em a phone to use, but as they’re walking back, about a quarter mile up the road, sitting in the middle that dirt path where they’re at is the car. But the car is just, it’s exactly 90 degrees from the way it was parked. There were no track to or from how this car got there. And none of them had any idea, any clue about what happened to it. But they get in the car, start the engine, it fires right up and they drive away and that’s the end of their evening

The Kiss Catalog

The kiss catalog is a journal of all of the kisses, [she then whispers to me] was it all that we had in the apartment, or that we had total [referring to our apartment from the previous year, I nodded my head at this point to affirm that it was all we had in the apartment], that we had in the apartment, #sisterhoodofbullen211 [this was a hashtag we often used on social media when we did stuff together and posted about it], um, of the six girls that, uh, were roommates together freshman year, plus three other adopted roommates. Um, it includes details of MY first kiss and a lot of kisses of other people: boyfriends and stuff like that. Highly confidential, for girls eyes only [she laughs a bit at this part]. Uh, it’s some fun times, it documents all the emotions we were feeling, which sometimes you forget as you look back, so it was fun

Laffy Taffy Joke

I: What did the cashew say to the peanut? N: What? I: Imma Cashew

Christmas Tree Hunting

I = [laughs slightly] Uh, our family isn’t big on traditions, um, but uh the day after Thanksgiving um, we always go and get a Christmas tree as a family. And um, because now all my older siblings are, or a lot of my older siblings are married, um sometimes it is the whole family going and sometimes it’s just me and parents [laughs]. N = Do you guys go get one at a store, or do you guys cut it down? I = Uh, we cut it down. So I live at the base of a mountain, and at the top of a mountain uh, there’s, uh, a Christmas tree farm, so that’s where we go up and get it. Every year. N = Alright, and where is this? I = In Ben Lomond, California. N = Mkay. I = I can’t remember the name of the place. N = that’s alright, um do you guys have anything specific that you do with the tree afterwards, do you decorate it together do you… I = Uh, we usually decorate it together, we, we um in the morning we go get the, get the tree and when we get home we hose it down and we put it in the stand and take it inside that night and we start decorating it. So, during that time usually everyone else is pulling out the boxes, er the Christmas boxes and getting all the decorations ready for it. N = Alright, do you guys put your tree in the same place every year? I = Uh, yes we do. Well depending on the size of the tree, we’ll put it uh, well it depends if we put it on the table or not. Um, but when you walk into our, into my house, um you’d be staring right at it, it’d just, because when you walk into the front door it opens up into the living room and then just in the corner straight ahead would be where the Christmas tree is. N = Nice, um, I had a question and I can’t remember what it was, it was probably not important I guess. Any other important traditions about the tree you can think of, is there anything that is significant in this? I = Not really uh, I guess we always listen, so, ok yeah I guess. Um my dad, is a huge fan of a Christmas music being played on the piano. But our grand piano has a little, I don’t know, it’s not a CD player, but it’s like one of those floppy disks, uh, players [laughs], and so he pulls out his own box of floppy disks and puts it in and the piano just plays the music and we’ll listen to that when we decorate the Christmas tree. N = Alright, so do you think people in your family have different viewpoints on this tradition, like does one person love it and one person hate it or… I = Uh, no I think we all look forward to it, cuz really it’s just good family bonding and it’s just like something we’ve done all growing up because we’ve lived in that house for um, I’m turning 23, 20 years or so. Um, so so yeah we’ve done it for decades, literally. And so. So yeah we always look forward to it and always do it