Locomotive No. 844

Here in our humble town of Delta the famous "Living Legend" Locomotive No. 844 came to visit. Though the train was only stopping in Delta because the workers had to 'dope the rods', a numerous amount of people gathered to see the steam engine.
It was exciting to see the crowds of people, parents and their kids, to be a part of this steaming history. I personally got to have a chat with the conductor himself. Jim Coker.
Coker has been working on the railroad for more than 36 years now and really enjoys his job. You could tell by the way he talked and laughed with the kids that his favorite part of the job was seeing all the smiling faces in the crowd. He went on to tell me that whenever they take No. 844 anywhere there is always a crowd gathered when they stop to see one of Union Pacific's only steam engines left.

Sweet Sweet History

Here I am sitting on a computer at the Family History Center in little old Delta looking up family history. Tonight, for young women's, we all drove down from Oak City to look up our Ancestors and see if we could do any temple work on them.
Last time we were here my mother and I didn't have any luck at all. I get being technologically impaired from my mother. (Don't believe me read the blog before this one...though that time wasn't my fault) Computers just don't seem to get along with us. But this time we were determined to get some work done and find our ancestors.
Rose Marie, an expert at family history, search, and temple work came with our ward, and boy did she help. My mom and I found all sorts of names and work we get to do. Now I usually keep religion out of my blog, just because there are enough blogs about religion out there, but I have to say, I hope I can bring these names to the temple with my family and get them done. I want my family to feel the amazing feeling that I felt when I went with Rose's family and did names she had looked up.
I was dating Joseph Travis (Rose's son), and one of the things that I most remember about being with him was going to the temple with his family and doing baptisms for names that Rose had found on new.familysearch.org. It was an amazing experience. The feeling you get when you do the names you've found is so much different. So much more amazing and reverent. More than anything else, that is the biggest thing that has ever built my testimony, and I am very grateful that I got the experience to go.

There goes my computer...

Yesterday afternoon a storm came through my little town of Oak City. Nothing big we thought, just some lightning, some rain. Well turns out we thought wrong.

Upon walking into our house we smelled burning electrical, and found that random things in our house won't work. Well let me take that back, random electronics in our house won't work. Such as my tv in my room, random outlets around our house, a phone line is down, and oh yeah, I forgot to mention, our home computer is fried. Yeah, what an awesome day right?

So now my dad is taking our computer tower up north to get it fixed. Or replaced. Whichever one needs to happen. Oh well, at least it wasn't my fault this time...

Fast Times at Delta High

    Only in my small High School would it be acceptable for a teacher to wrestle a student to the floor as proper punishment. I remember the first day I went to school down here in good old Delta High, that was the day I learned that our school is based off of Wrestling. Mostly because we'd taken state almost every year since 1993. As I walked into English I sat in the back avoiding contact with people as if they were aliens. It was there that a freshman guy challenged our teacher. And right at the front of the class room is where my teacher wrestled him to the ground and sat on him.

    Now to my Junior year, this year there was a teacher, my math teacher (who ironically is brothers with the English teacher that wrestled this kid), who told me there isn't much a teacher can do now days to get fired. Really only three things actually.

-Steal money from the school.

-Kill a kid.
-Or get one pregnant.

    Yep, this is my High School. Not to mention that our school was built based on plans for a California school. We built a school designed for California in Utah. Hello. I want to know who on earth thought that was smart.

    Welcome to the fast times at Delta High.

5 Good Reporting Strategies

Over the past few weeks I have learned many things that helps to be a reporter, and since this blog was inspired by my Journalism I might as well write them.

#1. Don't ever be late for an interview.
              Luckily I didn't learn this the hard way. I am never late for appointments that I have set up. But I learned this little fun fact because as I was waiting in an office for an appointment I set up I was listening to someone being chewed out for being late. Glad that wasn't me.

#2. Be smarter than the person your interviewing.
             Often people will try to hide information or dirty facts from you if your digging at a good story. Its your right to know these things. The peoples right. Go in with information. Protect your right to know.

#3. Don't trust everything your told.
             Check up on what people tell you. Being a reporter people tend to automatically not like you. So they'll withhold information, or make a story into something its not.

#4. Go into an appointment with questions prepared.
              It makes you feel stupid if you have to admit your not quite sure what to ask.

#5. Record everything you can.
              People will often deny something they said and blame you for writing. Make sure you have proof that they said what they said.

Until next time my faithful readers!

Some quotes to live by :)

I'm kind of a quote Junkie. I'll sit and look up quotes on the Internet for hours. A absolutely love quotes. I have a big quote book that I read all the time. Its one of my favorite books. These are the ones in my journal. Enjoy!

Key to Happiness: Eliminate the things that make you unhappy.

Remember at any given moment, there are a thousand things you can love.

"If I lay here, if I just lay here, would you lie with me, and just forget the world?"

Whats meant to be will always find a way.

Live out Loud.

Nobody really cares if your miserable, so you might as well be happy.

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.

Remember: a team of professionals built the Titanic. But a lone armature built the Ark.

Scars are tattoos with better stories.

From the Book:
The World According to Seamus Harper
Ch. 12, para. 8, verse 3
"The Universe hates you, deal with it."

Stand for something or you'll fall for anything.

Always do the things that scares you.

Those who say it can't be done, should get out of the way of those who are already doing it.

Never grow a wishbone daughter where your backbone outta be.

Be the best of whatever you are.

The courses of true love never did run smooth.

Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it.

"Don't be stupid." -Oaks

Ruin is a gift. Ruin is the road to transformation.

They might not need me, but they might;
I'll let my head be just in sight;
A smile as small as mine might be
precisely their necessity.
     -Emily Dickinson

A woman's heart is a deep sea of secrets.

The more freedom you give someone, the more they come back to you. When the rich wage war its the poor who die.

Just material things.

Its not the weight of the world that matters, its how you carry it.

Duck, Duck, DUCK!

When I was younger, my parents got ducks.

See, as a kid, my dad grew up with a duck and a cat. The duck and cat grew up together, so they wouldn't hurt each other. They'd sleep together and protect each other. So my dad wanted a duck for me. Because if you only get one duck, then it attaches itself to a human, and thinks itself to be human.

Our first duck was brilliant, it would lay in your arms, come to you, play with you, you could even watch T.V. with it! Then we moved, and the people who bought our house wanted to keep our duck. Which we agreed to seeing as we didn't exactly have a place to keep him at our new house yet.

So a year went by and we got a new duck. One of those white ones that looks like that Aflac duck. And this one carries none of the brilliance our other duck had.

This thing just never learns, and lucky me its decided to attach itself it my side. See, a duck is like most birds, it will attach to one person and one person only. Our last duck picked my dad, but for some reason this time, I'm the lucky winner.

This stupid duck will walk right in between your feet and try to bite at your feet and legs. And you can't walk normally because you don't want to step in the dumb thing so your all trying to be considerate and it gets in your way even more. So now my whole family is used to just running to where we need to go in the yard because then it can't keep up with us and get under our feet.

Unless it is really in a mood that day.

See, one day, I thought I'd be smart and run away from the porch to the garden and run past the duck, then it wouldn't touch me. Oh no, that didn't work, that thing was determined to get me. As I'm running that crazy duck starts flapping its wings so it can run faster to catch me and it lands on the back of my legs tripping me, and taking us both down with the dumb thing on top of me! I swear next thanksgiving I'm going to replace that Turkey with duck...