The Life of Joe Ricks

I'm a Ninja...kind of

2009-10-26T21:36:00.000-07:00

I thought about studying for a test tomorrow...that's about as far as that went.

I'd rather procrastinate.

It kind of started with me getting locked out of my house. I went next door to talk to a girl about tomorrow's exam. I came back, and realized that I had locked the door behind me without bringing my keys. Hate it when that happens.

Luckily I know how to break into these apartments. I went back to Kathleen's asked for a screwdriver and returned to my apartment window. I carefully removed the screws, trying not to mess up the already bent window-covering anymore than necessary and pulled the screen off.

Anyway, after I removed the screen, I looked at the dust infested blinds (seriously those things are dirty. I mean, it kind of looks like it's growing some kind of grey fur, ew), lifted one leg up over the of the window sill, and reached my arm though. Slight problem: there was a vcr right on the other side (notice the emphasis on was) ...I mean come on, who has a vcr!? answer: my roommate....anyway, the old useless piece of junk decided to fall over and crashed on the ground as i simultaneously-and-not-so-gracefully got caught on an internet cable, slipped, and fell through the blinds and slammed into the computer table.

Yeah, I'm a ninja.

I just need some practice.

And I need to get back to homework.

Whoa 23

2009-10-21T14:24:00.000-07:00

So I'm 23 now. Pretty crazy. I feel old.

As I get older, the need to get presents for my birthday has all but gone away, but this birthday i got some awesome and very thoughtful presents...

1. Fudge. My mom sent me a tub of homemade fudge, it seriously is like the best thing ever.

Awesomeness Level: 5
Thoughtfulness Level: 5

2. A bunch of girls came over at 5:45 am, and broke into my house (my roommate was supposed to let them in, but I guess he forgot) woke me up and took me to an awesome restaurant called Bobo's. Seriously amazing. ....Honestly I was pretty grumpy for about 2 mins. I mean, 5:45 is pretty dang early, but then I had a blast.

Awesomeness Level: 1.7-5 (the first 2 mins was horrible, but then it was pretty amazing)
Thoughtfulness level: 5

3. A case of IBC cream soda, a burned cd, and 5 pictures of random people I don't know that Paige found near the swimming pool at my apartment complex. It was amazing. Enough said.

Awesomeness Level:5
Thoughtfulness Level: 5

4. A pumpkin that said "Happy Birthday Joe!" I thought it was really nice till I looked on the back and which said, "U R A brat" .... :)
Awesomeness Level: 1-5 (depending on which side of the pumpkin you look at)
Thoughtfulness Level: 1-5 (depending on which side of the pumpkin you look at)

5. A Chocolate cupcake with a match on top (he was out of candles).

Awesomeness Level: 5

Thoughtfulness Level:5

6. I got home kind of late on my birthday, and went into my room. There was a brown paper bag on my bed with a sign that said "It's a boy!" On the side was also a note "Happy Birthday Joe, from Chris" (one of my roommates) Inside, Chris had thrown a bunch of things that I think he found inside his closet.....including a pair of baby socks, an old rubber soccer ball, 3 skeletons with ropes tied around their necks, a pencil with snails painted on it, and an old/used comb.

I started laughing so hard that I woke up my roommates.

Thoughtfulness Level: .1

Awesomeness Level: 17

Anyway, it was a fun day.

Corndogs...yum

2009-10-04T20:53:00.000-07:00

I'm a poor college kid who doesn't like to spend too much money on himself. I'm not a tight-wad or anything, i just don't like spending massive amounts of money on useless things like laundry detergent (yay for Febreeze....ok, so it's my roomate's Febreeze, but that's beside the point).

This kind of reminds me of other day when I had a corn dog for lunch. You know, one of those 25 cent pre-fab-non-biodegradable types that has that funky wooden taste from the stick slammed through the middle of the dog? They're not really that bad...ok, nevermind, they are pretty much that bad. Bad describes it really well actually. One of the institute teacher's walked by with one on a plate, took a bite and said,"Hmmmm". I guess I gave him a weird look or something because he looked up at me and said, "I'm humming because it's warm, not because it's good.

Yeah, you know what i mean

Anyway, after removing the plastic covering and placing the frozen slab of almost-food on a paper plate, I popped it in the microwave for 85 seconds (if you do it for 90 seconds, the backside explodes...still not sure why that happens) then pulled it out, and covered it in crazy amounts of ketchup/mustard (if you put enough mustard and ketchup on, it almost tastes like real food) and started eating the dog.

While eating the batter blasted piece of ultra-processed meat, feeling my arteries clog and my stomach scream, i began to question the the reasons for eating not just one, but two of these things. Usually I'm a pretty rational guy, most of the time...ok, except for that time when I decided that it would be smart to go around and asking random girls to marry me, or when I decided to stay up till 4:00am watching Nacho Libre instead of studying for a test the next morning... but, I mean, there is no diffence in taste between the actual hot dog and the peice of wood jammed through it's center! None at all. Why the hek am I eating these!?.....

And then it hit me: because they're only 25 cents.

I Play the Piano . . . sort of

2009-09-22T18:11:00.000-07:00

So, every once in a while i get these crazy urges to do weird things like running at 5:30 a.m., bungie jumping, sky-diving, belly-dancing, finger painting, or reaching out my arm and clotheslining people when they ride by on their skateboards.

Luckily i don't give in to these crazy urges. . . .too often.

But, ... the other day was at some friends house... and we sort of started playing the piano. . . .

and then got bored with the feet....

anyway....

life is good :)

Watermelon

2009-09-06T23:44:00.000-07:00

So, there's been a watermelon sitting on the desk in the middle of my living room for the past few days and I'm not really sure why.

I'm scared of asking anyone about it in the event that I'm hallucinating and am the only one who actually can see this huge green thing covering half of the table. But seriously. Why the hek is it there?

I've come up with some possible solutions:

1. One of my crazy roomates put it there.

2. I slept walked over to the grocery store last night, bought a watermelon, placed it on the table in front of everone, and then went back to bed.

3. Aliens. ( They've tried to take over my apartment before unnoticed )

5. There isn't a number 4

6. I really need to cut back on my ice cream intake..... so, ok, this doesn't really explain the watermelon, but it's still true.

7. I have a bad case of three-weeks-into-the-semester-itis (more commonly known as homework flu) and I'm hallucinating

It's gotta be #7

Lake Powell

2009-08-03T17:20:00.000-07:00

This past week has been pretty awesome. It started off with me getting invited to go to Lake Powell and it was a blast. Schedule was like this: Wake Up. Eat. Play in the Water. Eat. play in the sand. Eat. Sleep. Play on the Jet Ski (which is amazing by the way). Cliff jump. Eat. Laugh at my two new blog stalkers who are hilarious (hi Tawni and Ashley). And get sun burned...alot...like, i'm still peeling.

Anyway, here are some pics of the 3 day awesome trip. By the way, you know, jet skis are pretty much the most amazing things ever!!! Holy Cow!! So much fun.

Moving at 45 mph and then whipping the jet ski around is so fun! and it makes some wicked cool waves.

I also got a really cool tattoo too. A little girl came up to me and said, "That's a little girl's tattoo, not a boy tattoo". Ok, so she was right, but hey, everyone else took all the manly skull and crossbones and lightning ones.

Scott and I made a huge t-rex sand sculpture nad htat was really fun. It took a while to make, ok, so it took over 4 hours to make. Doh! It was pretty cool though

By the end of the trip i was pretty exhausted.....

...not gonna lie, I look pretty jacked up in this picture.

anyway, it was a really fun trip

Week in Review

2009-07-24T16:45:00.000-07:00

So, i've had a pretty crazy and fun past week, and so i thought i'd do a review of the week with some awesome pictures taken with my craptaculous camera-phone:

1. Scout camp. Fun Moment: my car exploded on the way. Larry (my car) had a nervous breakdown and is now in rehab over at my uncle's shop. (on a side note the kid's name in the picture on the left is Dodge, how cool is that?)

2. We stopped by a Wal-Mart and someone had lined up all of the carts outside in a huge circle. It was awesome.

3. Paul's Bachelor Party. It was really fun hanging out witha few of Paul's friends and laughing. He had asked me to be the male stripper, but luckily it didn't work out. I forgot my speedo. . . . .ew.

4. Elijah vs Yogurt. I looked over at my nephew and he had a purple yogurt-colored unibrow. I looked over at him and said, "Hey Lije, how'd you get that on your head." He looked up at me, slapped his yogurt covered hand on his forehead and said, "Oh, no!"

5. Reception. The place was huge! There was a live band, a DJ, awesome dance floor, ice scuptures and cute girls. It actually was a pretty fun evening minus the boring line.

6. Random Picture of Keira Knightly. So, actually there isn't a reason to have this on my blog and has nothing to do with what happened last week, but hey, she's hot.

7. Car Death #2. This guy who's been hitting on my little sister, accidentally rammed his huge truck into the side of her car. Awkward. The door doesn't open anymore.

8. Room Death. I came home from Utah after 17 hours of driving and looked in my roomate's room. This picture actually doesn't do the actual room justice. It was SO messy. Tyson had made a trail to get to his dresser. It was hilarious. Important side note: that's not my room.

Anyway, life is good.

Taking the Plunge... haha...get it?

2009-07-20T11:53:00.000-07:00

So, i'm in Utah right now. And to answer your question before you ask it: No. the picture of the gorgeous woman that caught your attention as soon as you opened this post is not my wife, not even my girlfriend. My older brother Paul is getting married. And as kind of a tribute to him, I decided to post some of his engagement pictures which are amazing! (ok, so I know that it's usually girls who post engagement pics, but these are really cool). This is also an effort to increase the amount of people who read this blog by posting pictures of beautiful people.

For all you girls who read this, this is my almost sister-in-law:

And these are the coolest engagement pics ever!!! I so need to try this

Ok, so they kind of look creepy underwater, but they both look like models. I'm not complaining or anything, but how the hek did Paul get all of the good looking genes in the family? I mean, come on, seriously!

Paul is pretty much the coolest guy ever. And since he never reads blogs I can talk about him all I want. Paul is one of those few people in this world who was just born cool. He's just a rock solid awesome guy. He's intelligent and is really fun to talk to. He also has an amazing sense of humor, like, I remember when we were younger he would make Samuel (my oldest bro) laugh so hard he'd shoot milk out of his nose. I almost saw a repeat of that yesterday. It was awesome. Anyway, I also met Stephanie for the first time yesterday and she is freaking awesome as well. They definately go well together. (and she has a cute younger sister...awesome).

So, here we go with a few more pics:

Anway, the wedding's tomorrow and I'm really excited for them

Boy Scout Camp

2009-07-17T20:28:00.001-07:00

So, earlier this week I drove up to Northern Arizona to be an adult for a scout camp.

It was . . . interesting. Like. . . , ok, I am really amazed at how close the Lord of the Flies is like Boy Scout Camp. Wow. William Golding must have been a scoutmaster or something, because he nailed it. 12 year old boys are CRAZY!

They also have an attention span of about 13 seconds. For example, this really happened on a field trip to a museum in Flagstaff:

---Me teaching astromomy--
me---"Ok, so what is the Sun made out of?"
boy #1 --"Hey, stop touching me!"
boy #2 --" I'm just sitting here."

boy#1 kicks boy #2.

me--"Hey guys, let's calm down, let's look at this book for the astronomy merit badge."
boy #1--" Look! Elk!"
boy #3-- "I want some cheetos"
boy #1 --"Your mom is so fat she's like a whale"
boy #3--"That's dumb"
boy #4 --" Nick's mom is dumb"

--laughing---

me--"Ok, astronomy. The Sun"
boy#2--"Hey Joe, I have a question"
me--" Go for it"
boy #2 ---" So did you know that in the center of the Sun is actually a Sun god, and his daughter hates the Earth so he's gonna start blowing up stuff on Earth."
me---" Um.....ok guys, Let's look at this picture righ---"
Boy#3---" I want cheetos"
Boy#4---"Where's my water bottle?"
boy #2---"Are there aliens?"
me---"Sure"
boy#6--" Have you ever been on the Tower of Teror?"
me--" yes. . . Ok, so, astronomy---"
Boy#5,6,7 burst into song--" If I were a boy scout a boy scout I would be..."
Boy #2--" Did you know the loch ness monster is real?"

Super Powers

2009-07-12T22:08:00.000-07:00

As I sit here contemplating the vast enormities of the universe, thinking thought provoking and intellectually pleasing thoughts like—Why did I just shoved a chicken pot pie in my mouth knowing that it had just come out of the microwave and was probably going to light my tongue on fire? (which it did), Why is there a random big guy on my roommate’s computer chatting on Facebook? or –Why did a girl just come screaming into my house being chased by a boy with ground up ice from her freezer? . . . the world may never know.

But the real question, How do I get that really cute girl that I haven’t talked to yet to notice me?

Answer: Duh. Super powers.

I mean, it worked for Spiderman, right?

Wouldn’t it be cool to have super powers? I guess it’s every nerd's dream to have some kind of super power. You know, wake up and accidentally find out you have been bit by a gamma radiated cockroach that somehow turned you into a super-buff stud with laser-vision and mind reading capabilities.

Yeah, that would rock. Ok, minus the getting bit by a cockroach, that would stink. Ew.

Ok, so I’ll ditch the cockroach, maybe it would be ok to have a huge giant with a beard show up at my front door and tell me that I was actually from a different planet and had to go to school to learn how to become a Jedi , then find out that there are actually split realities and I need to find a really sharp spork that lets me cut into other universes.

And then I somehow save the world. And then that cute girl would notice me.

Or, I could just go talk to her I guess.

Do cockroaches bite?

Hilarious

2009-07-07T19:57:00.000-07:00

Ok, so the other day i was looking through this amazing blog call the Failblog. It's awesome. Anyway, here are some of the highlights in order of awesomeness :

8.

7. this one's a personal favorite . . .

6. Next time I go to the Renaissance Festival I'm so going like this

5. Freaking awesome

3. This happened to me in Brasil :)

2.

1. Now this is just amazing

Anyway, i hope all of you guys have a great day :) and if you aren't having a great day, watch that last video again, it makes me laugh every time

They're Going Down

2009-07-01T22:35:00.000-07:00

In a continuation of the ongoing Orange and Frosting incident......

I got home from institute and found these on my doorstep.

They're going down

Revenge of the Frosting . . . and Pebbles

2009-06-29T17:06:00.000-07:00

Surgeon General's Warning: This is a post about a group of 4 cub-scout-minded adults and reading this might be hazardous to your opinion of all of those living in apartment 24.

So, ok, now that you've read that . . .

About a week ago, a bunch of girls came and slammed frosting in my and my roomate's face. We swore and made a secret pact that all of them were going down. Big time. Two words, Cheez Wiz. Anway, later that night I walked outside and found this on my doormat:

In case you can't tell, yeah, that's a rotten orange with smiley face . . . .and one eyeball.

There was a note, "Hi, my name is Skipper. I want to be ur friend. Please take care of me by giving me cookies, or I will smush u w/ frosting--chocolate flavored."

We don't really respond well to threats.

Anway, last night, we wrote back. And sent Pebbles. This is Pebbles:

We also sent a voodoo marshmallow man with matches and a note.

"Hi, my name is Pebbles. I don't negotiate with terrorists. Squeaky here found out the hard way. Muah hahahaha!" Anway, we lit the matches in the marshmallow man on fire and put him on the girl's apt doormat, knocked and ran.

It took a couple of tries, but it finally worked.

I think it kind of freaked them out. We were very pleased.

And I hope my mom never reads this because she'll think i'm crazy. And really mature.

Freaking Amazing Toy Store

2009-06-28T17:05:00.000-07:00

So, in New York City last week we went to FAO Schwarz. It's this massive toy store. Huge. And they have cool lego statues all over the place. Batman, Harry Potter, Hagrid, and yeah, Chewbacca. So I took a picture.

p.s. For the record, I'm the one on the left. There's been some confusion from other people who saw this.

Pools, Frosting and Peanut Butter

2009-06-25T22:21:00.000-07:00

So, I thought I'd let everyone know about some of the more awesome things that are happening in my life right now. Here we go:

1. The pool at my apartment complex is no longer green. As in, the water now is clear, meaning that I can now go swimming in the mornings. Score.
2. So, today I was sitting on my couch minding my own business when three girls came in my apartment with their hands behind their backs. Suspicious? Yeah. Very Suspicious. And they were laughing. Girls laughing=so incredibly badly suspicious.
Anway, They came up to me and my roomate and slammed handfulls of vanilla frosting in my face. Doh!
3. I learned how to play a Format song on my guitar.
4. I bought a bag of peanut butter oreos.

cool eh?

Yeah, life is good

If Only a Tyranafaurus Would Come to the Bookstore

2009-06-09T16:24:00.000-07:00

My work is really boring. Probably the most boringest (if boringest were a word) job of all time. Seriously. EVER.

I used to dream of having way cooler jobs. When I was a little kid I invented a place called Kid-slack. It was this amazingly cool mall/theme park/ food place/ toy store where you could do anything. There were water slides and dinosaurs like the Tyranafaurus which was a color changing dinosaur that could talk and run really fast. See, that would be a fun job. Play with dinosaurs. Play on water slides. Eat chocolate ice cream while riding on roller coasters. Make millions.

But no. I put clothes in cardboard boxes. Lame.

Anyway, when I was younger I used to have an amazing imagination. I mean what little kid hasn’t imagined himself as a superhero with amazing super-powers (flame throwing, ice throwing, big explosion throwing)? I used to go out in my backyard with my older brothers Sam and Paul (well, ok, mostly Sam, Paul grew up at the age of seven) and play amazing games, most of which involved some kind of improvised weapon made from old pieces of wood from the alley behind our house.

Oh those were the days. The days of obliviousness. No worry of anything except for how to put on band-aids. Now I work 40 hours a week in the dungeon of the Bookstore slaving away under the horrible tyrant known as “the boss”. No more having fun. No more having an imagination.

Well, so maybe I have sort of grown up a little. Maybe.

But, maybe I still do pretend that the cars driving by on the freeway are actually alien spaceships trying to take over Tucson and the only hope of survival is for me in my time machine pt-cruiser to blow them up using my hidden laser guns under the hood. But that’s normal . . . .right?

Wild Thing

2009-05-10T15:57:00.000-07:00

You know, there are always children's books that catch your attention as a child more than others. For me this list was/is pretty huge and includes Jumanji, The Stinky Cheese Man, Cloudy Witha Chance of Meatballs, BFG, The Mouse and the Motorcycle, and The Eleventh Hour, among many others.

But, you never expect to meet any of these characters in real life.

The other day I was at work at the UofA Bookstore, and there, next to the elevator, surrounded by masses of screaming kids (and scared kids hiding behind bookshelves) was the most amazing creature of all time.

A REAL Wild Thing.

I screamed, ran out from behind the bookshelf, cut in line in front of the little kids, and ran over to take a picture. I then ran downstairs and started doing a victory dance, roaring my terrible roar and gnashing my terrible teeth. The other guys in E-comm thought I was crazy.

I think they were just really jealous.

Gum

2009-04-28T17:04:00.000-07:00

As I was walking with one of my friends today, I noticed that there was something unusual about the way that my foot was sticking to the ground. I stopped, and realized that I had stepped in a massive piece of gum, not your average sized piece of gum, but a HUGE piece. I mean, this person must have wadded up almost 2 packages of Bubble Yum and then mixed it with a few of those nasty Halloween gums that no one likes, chewed on it and spit it right where I was walking.

No idea how I didn’t see it. My shoe found it though. Good shoe.

Anyway, the gum wasn’t the only thing that was stuck at the bottom of my shoe. Along with the gum I was carrying several large rocks, leaves, a foot of dental floss (no joke, dental floss), sand (I’m in Tucson, there’s a lot of sand), and hair that I can only assume was human. The floss was having fun and decided to start climbing to the top of the shoe and the gum decided to have a party and decided to move to the back of my foot. This awesome pile of nasty junk was so huge that it covered the entire bottom of my shoe, like COVERED, from front to back. I felt like the Blob had decided to take over the world and I was the first victim.

So, I stared at the huge mass of stuff on my shoe for a split second, thought about playing it cool, screamed, and then proceeded to dance around trying to get the gum off of my shoe. Luckily it was right next to a busy road in between class on campus at the UA. I think that many were trying to figure out why this weird college kid was dancing the week before finals (usually it happens the week after). I’m actually pretty sure they were impressed with my dancing skills.

Back to the horror story:

The 95 degree weather did wonders for the easiness of getting the gum off. It sort of spread like a virus and started attacking me.

After I bravely fought off the gum (I won), and got rid of the hair, floss/string stuff, and the rocks, I proceeded to walk to class, and on the way back, a grumpy golf cart driver swore at me as I walked across the street. I think he got even madder (is it more mad? Or madder? Matter? Or madderer?) when I laughed at him. I mean, I had just saved the world, and he was getting mad at me. Punk.

I hope he steps in some gum.

I learned about fractions really early in my life

2009-04-20T12:29:00.000-07:00

So, the other day in one of my English classes a girl looked over at my hand and just started staring at it. She had this look of total surprise, this look of, “How are you doing that with your fingers?” I looked down and stared too. I didn’t see anything wrong. . . . besides the fact that my fingers were missing.

I smiled. She stared.

I get those kinds of weird looks all the time, oh since I was like 9 years old when I had this tragic bowling ball incident in Winslow AZ. I went bowling and the finger holes on the ball were too small. I threw the ball and *pop* my fingers went with the ball.

Ok, so that was a complete lie, and it’s usually the first ones that I tell people when I meet them (The other one is that I don’t know how to play Starcraft). It’s actually pretty hilarious how many people actually believe that my fingers were crushed off while bowling. Everyone knows it was a tragic garbage disposal accident. . . .ew, gross.

Anyway, over the years I’ve come up with some pretty awesome stories about how I lost my fingers, and this list gets bigger every time I meet someone new. Almost every person I meet has met someone who has lost their fingers and feels it’s necessary to tell me their story (so I don’t feel bad). This is also accentuated by the fact that my grandpa had one of his fingers chopped off and told us stories of how that happened. I was scared to wash dishes, paint, or play with my belly button for years because of him.

But, you know, there are some definite advantages to having 8.5 fingers:

1. I can give high 3 and a halfs (so excited for the day I can give high fives)
2. When I was in high school, girls would ask to hold my hand just to see what it was like. Score one for Joe.
3. I never have to get my fingernails clipped.
4. I get 15% off when I get a manicure.
5. Getting your fingers cut off is a great wart remover.
6. See #2

So, you know, things aren’t that bad.

And I want to go bowling.

Maybe someday I’ll actually tell about the amazing surfing/shark accident. . . .or just tell the truth.

:)

Pictures I found on my computer

2009-04-14T19:19:00.000-07:00

As I was looking through some old Pictures, i found some pretty awesome ones. Her we go.

So, a few years ago my dad and I went to a continuing education thing at Disneyland, (I'm the one on the right, in case you were wondering)

This one was before I turned into an evil Jedi:

Next awsome mission picture:

Yeah, the one on the right with the knife in his hand is my companion. Pretty weird. Honestly I'm not really too sure what I'm doing. I can't really tell if I'm smiling/laughing or having stomach pains. Anyway, next random picture:

Ok, so this one I actually found of Facebook. I think I'm hula dancing.

Chess

2009-04-04T00:31:00.001-07:00

So, recently after running, my friend Paige and I have been pulling out games and playing them till I get tired of losing. Board games and card games are pretty fun. Really fun. But it would be nice to win every once in a while. Growing up, I used to think I was pretty good, but you see, Paige happens to be very good at games. And she’s really competitive. And she enjoys slaughtering me horribly.

For example, about a week ago she showed me this game called “Set”. Basically it’s this card game where you match up 3 different cards together and you call “Set!” when you find a match. Pretty easy right? A second grader could play this game and win right? Good clean fun right? Wrong. Very wrong. This is (along with Yoga) just one more way that Paige proves she is better than me. She beats me so bad in this game that I can’t figure out if she’s just really that much smarter than me, or she’s cheating.

So, we tried backgammon. I had never played it. It’s pretty much a game of luck. It couldn’t be that hard right? I mean, you roll dice and move little checker pieces across a board. Easy right? Once again, wrong. She laughed as she beat me.

That’s why I was so glad that she wanted to start playing chess. I like chess. It’s a fun game and I even know how to beat most second graders . . . depending on the second grader.

But once again, yesterday, while we were playing chess, she was in the process of beating me horribly. I, who until recently had thought I was good at chess, was getting smoked. She had my queen, my rook, knights and bishops. I had 4 pawns . . . .but somehow I put her in checkmate with a pawn. No joke. Basically it was an accident on my part, but I tried to play it off really well as if I had planned it the whole time. She couldn’t believe it. The look on her face was priceless .

I smiled. I had finally won at something more intellectually challenging than connect the dots.

Take that world.

Pictures Don't Lie

2009-03-29T14:47:00.000-07:00

In contemplating the vast enormities of the universe I have learned many things. One is that Yu-Gi-Oh! is not a quality substitute for Pokémon. Second, World of Warcraft is not a quality substitute for life. Third, pictures are pretty cool. Like, way interestingly cool. For many reasons, one of which is something my older brother used to tell me; pictures don't lie. Later I found out that this is not an appropriate thing to say to a girl in response to, "This picture makes me look fat". But still, really, pictures=pretty cool.

So, the other day, my friend Paige showed me this awesome website of amazing portraits of people. Seriously I was hurting I was laughing so hard. I hadn't laughed that hard in a very long time. Wow.

Anyway I thought that I would share some of the awesome pictures in order for all of you poeple who read this blog could get a laugh as well. Here are some of the highlights, in increasing order of awesomeness:

9. Random picture of 4 guys.

8. Cindy

7. Jerry.

6. Jakob.

5. Eric and his girlfriend. It kind of reminds me of David Bowie's hair in the Labyrinth (thank goodness Eric wore pants instead of the spandex)

5. Brothers. Ok, so this wasn't as weird as the others, but the dude on the right just looks so much cooler than the older brother:

4. Bernard . . . gotta love technology

3. The Creepers (ok, so i couldn't find their name, but seriously! look at the dude's eyes!)

2. Cousins

1. And by far, the best school picture ever taken, . . . prepare yourselves.

Christine:

Anyway, have a good day everyone.

Cool Picture #2

2009-03-15T21:26:00.000-07:00

SPRING BREAK!!!!!!!!!!!!! Life is wonderful.

oh, to add to the awesomeness of Spring Break, the other day I saw this freaking awesome sign outside. I wonder what the guy who put this up was on. Mabye he was just having a bad day and didn't realize that most bikes are ridden right-side up.

Just an Awesome Picture

2009-03-10T21:39:00.000-07:00

So, one of my mission buddies posted some pictures. I just thought i had to put this on my blog. It was just too awesome of a picture not to.

In case you were wondering, this is how i taught people in Brazil. Just when they refused to let me in the house.

What the?

2009-03-07T10:09:00.000-08:00

In response to many people's (not peeples) questions, and contrary to popular belief, this is not a dead chicken in my hand. Yes. That is a banana. Yes. It was on the floor in my car previous to the race and a guy named Ryan squished it into the floor. Yes. i still need to clean my car floor.

It was actually really interesting. We were driving to Prescott and I smelled a smelly smell and said, "Man, what is that funky smell?" It smelled like squished banana in my car. But that couldn't be, you see, I had very (not so) carefully placed the banans in the back of my car. Could not figure out what the hek it was . . . till we got to the motel. I found it.

Anyway, this next picture pretty much explains Ragnar relays; we all really felt like Steve (look next to the back tire)

And this was just a random finishing picture.

Ragnar

2009-03-02T21:12:00.000-08:00

So, question of the day. What do you get when you cross 2796 crazy people with 201.9 miles and way too much time on their hands? (hint: it's not NASCAR)

Answer: Ragnar relay.

So this past weekend I ran on a team of twelve people and we ran from Prescott to Mesa. Do you know what happens to your legs after running for 27 and 1/2 hours? they explode. Like mine did.
Honestly, it was a blast. Incredibly fun. Mucho funo (that's spanish, in case you were wondering, pronounced fun--oh).

Here are some of the highlights:

1. I finished my first leg of the race, I had been running hard, and i was ready to hand off the baton....and my team wasn't there. They had completely passed the handoff place and had just kept going. So I waited for about 5 or 6 mins (the other teams began to catch up) and then the big blue van came, out hopped my mom and she ran over took the baton and took off. Now, this whole incident wouldn't have been so bad, but about 6 hours later, while we were resting, a really cute girl (as cute as you can get while smelling like 8 hours of BO) came up to me and said, "Hey are you that guy that was hauling at the beginning of the race?....and then your team wasn't there?" she laughed. I dropped kicked her... in my mind.

2. We passed through a place called Peeples Valley. No joke. Peeples. What were they thinking? I mean, come on! Who on Earth would name a city Peeples? Maybe they just didn't no how two spel verie whel an desided two naim the plase "Peeples". Basically, it was really a lot more funny for everyone who was in our van because we had had 2 hours of sleep in the past 24 hours, and we were all high on 18 miles worth of endorphins, or endofins, (maibe i should lern how to spel tue).

And finally, 3. One of our teammates was attacked by a pack of dogs. No joke. Conrad Spencer came up to us after one of his legs and told us that a huge pack of dogs came after him and started attacking him. At first I thought he was messing around, but no, he was very serious. Anyway, he fought them off with his headlamp that he was using and he survived. (for the record, he almost can't see at all without his glasses, so we really aren't sure if he was attacked by dogs or a pack of angry desert gnomes....whatever the heck those are)

Anyway, this weekend was a blast, and the endorphins are finally beginning to leave my system.

Microwaves=fun

2009-02-24T14:25:00.000-08:00

The other day I was at my friends house and we decided to see what would happen if you microwaved a burning match (man i hope my mom never reads this). Check it out!!!

Did you see the huge burning explosion of awesomeness!!?? Later I began telling a few friends in my classes how fantastic it was. Severeal of them tried it ...oops. .....I really hope Tucson doesn't explode.

I don't think I was always a pyro. I think I first leaned how to burn things from my older brothers (meaning Paul) who discovered that you could burn holes through basketballs using really large magnifying glasses. Awesome. Well, sort of awesome, it was my basketball.

Anyway, this also was the brother that my parents had to hide the matches from in order to keep him from lighting everything in the house on fire including hairspray, GI-Joes, and um …the house. So while growing up I discovered you could explode other things too. Like those little water yo-yos. Yeah, you could hang them outside on the clothes line, pull out the matches (I knew where they were) and light them on fire. Talk about awesome!! You know, I think I learned about that from Paul too. . . .

So, I thoughtI had finally mellowed out, that I had finally overcome the urge to blow things up, and then I discovered the awesomeness of the microwave. You see, a microwave really doesn't use fire, it sort of superheats the air right? wrong, it blows things up too. Like a piece of pizza made out of marshmallows.

Or a bar of soap.

Well, once again i've given up on exploding things. I'll leave that to other people. My apartment complex, along with the rest of Tucson is safe.

My roomate hid the microwave.

Ice-Cream is awesome

2009-01-07T20:49:00.000-08:00

Reason # 544 that i love Tucson:

Nuclear Explosions.

Well, actually, Tucson has not been blown to smithereens (not exactly sure how to spell that, smytheryines? smitherreenes? smitherines? oh well) This is a picture of a Tucson Sunset taken by me on my ever-so awesome camera phone. Yeah....I definitely need to get a better camera.... and learn how to take pictures. Anyway, the sunset was really pretty.

So I went to Mesa yesterday and went to the Mesa Temple and that was a blast. I love it there. The feeling of peace is incredible inside the temple. I just feel like being a better person every time I go. Afterwards I drove over to MC's house and talked with her and my cousin Kayla and her awesome husband Kallam (pronounced like "Kayla"with and "m" at the end) ....it's so fun saying their names kind of jumbled like "Hey! Kaylamsjsm!" and see both of them look at you. Ok, so it's really juvenile and they probably get so annoyed with everyone doing it, but . . . .it doesn't stop it from being incredibly fun. Afterwards, MC and I went and bought ice-cream. Not to go off on a tangent, but I love Ice-cream. So amazing. While being down here in Tucson I have learned from several women that ice-cream can be used as an anti-depressant, which is also a good explanation for why I am not miserable all the time. There’s always a carton in our freezer (for the record, it’s not always mine). This does not, however, explain why I have yet to reach 150 pounds. Dang metabolism.

Back to the thought about people that have about the same name as Kayla, there is a girl in Tucson (for our purposes we will call her Shayla) who hates me. I'm not entirely sure why Shayla hates me. It's probably because I need a haircut (which I really do). Shayla came over today and let me know that I am the scum of the earth. Anyway, it never ceases to amaze how girls can just look at you with one look, and in that one look let you know that you are the most horrible thing to ever have been created since the invention of the accordian. But, oh well, she probably just needed to go eat some ice-cream.

The First Post.....

2009-01-04T16:09:00.000-08:00

Well i now have a blog. Pretty cool huh? I figured it was about time. So I thought I'd start out with a lame little story which will explain the address to this site (joerickles.blogspot) When I was in high school I ran cross country. I had run a race and had gotten a medal, but when they called out my name in front of everyone, they call out, "10th place (or whatever number....10th sounds better than it probably was) Joseph Rickles!" The rest of the year my name was changed. It was now Rickles. I've never really figured out why the announcer decided to add an “le” in between the “k” and the “s”, but I’ve never lived it down (ask Larissa Bratt). Luckily in Tucson no one knows this story, and now for some reason I’m loading this up on my blog. Weird.

Anyway, while I’m on the whole high school cross country thing I thought I might add another other awesome story about my past running days. I’ll never forget the day that the announcer (this was at the Hopi Invitational I think) said over the loudspeaker, “Come on by the concussion stand and get some Gatorade.” I never found out what the concussion stand was, but I was not going over there.

Here's a picture of me and some people from the team my Senior Year of High School (Wow I was really little!) The one on hte second to the left is my little sister Mary Catherine

I still love running. Once you’re out of shape and try to start getting back in shape it’s horrible. Blah! I’m getting back in shape though. It’s one of my New Years resolutions that I’ll probably break in about a month from now.