I couldn't think of a clever opening title for this post, so I just stole the new President-elect Barack Obama's campaign phrase. Lame, I know, but I've been away from my blog for so long, I don't feel back in my groove yet. I know if you read my most recent post, I made a promise to maintain the B log up to date. Kind of like how the Presidential candidates promise you everything from "no new taxes" to making you more popular. Well, my promise was just as empty as those.

I do have a good excuse. Not only have I been keeping up with my school and work, I just got married. I met the most wonderful and beautiful girl in the world. It took all i had to trick her into marrying me, but I succeeded. My next post will be a little about the wedding, with some pictures. In the mean time you can go and look at another thing that was keeping me busy. I started a blog for Mel and I. It's at mandmsartori.blogspot.com .

So it's time for a quick review of the last little while. Rest assure, I will be more vigilant in keeping the updates coming. I am promoting a "Change We Can Believe In" and promise to keep this B log up to date.

The Utah Utes just beat TCU last night in a thriller, but Mel and I went with our good friend Blake, and his son Mason to a Ute game a couple weeks ago when they played CSU. We had a great time, so thanks Will for the tickets. I tried to take some good pictures, and I got some okay shots. Someday, I would really like to have a press pass, and be on the sidelines, to take some pictures.

That's a really nice picture of Mel and I. Photo courtesy of Blake. Also, check out Mason, and his sweet game face. I love it.

During all the time preparing, planning, and sometimes stressing over the wedding, we didn't have time to adequately celebrate an important event. Mel's dad had his 60th birthday in the beginning of October. We did have a small birthday party, but that just didn't seem like it was enough. Mel's mom decided that a surprise party would be in order. The plan was to go up to their cabin near Bear Lake,and invite the family and friends. I had never been to the cabin before, but I had a great time. It was fun riding the 4 wheelers around, and just spending some quality R&R time.

Halloween was few weeks ago. I didn't go all out with the costume this year like I did last year.(remeber this?) But we did get together with friends at our new place to carve some pumpkins. Last year I carved an awesome looking Stormtrooper helmet. This year, well I decided to go with the New England Patriots logo. I think it turned out good. It was fun to see my friend Nate's kids and watch them getting so excited to carve pumpkins. His littlest boy Brody, was overly excited.

For those of you blog lurkers who have been to my site lately, you've probably noticed that I haven't had an update for quite some time. So I have to apologize. I do have good reason though, because I recently went back to school to get my MBA, so I have been awfully busy. Still I can't let something like school get in the may of my quality blogging can I?
Anyway, here are some funny pictures. Proof I really am special. At least to my mom.

These first two are from my vacation a while back to San Diego. We took a tour of an aircraft carrier, and got to look around the inside of the ship.


Sometimes you just can't hold it any longer.


This is probably one of my all-time favorite pictures. Remember the Nintendo 64 game of Mario? Every time at the loading of the game, you saw his big Italian mustached face, and he said "It's-a-me-a, a-Mario." That's what I think of every time I see this.

Today, August 21st, is National Spumoni Day. I bought some Spumoni ice cream yesterday to celebrate with today at work but I forgot to bring it in to work. Thanks to Mel for being so dang amazing, she went to the Spaghetti Factory on her lunch break, and bought a big gallon of Spumoni ice cream for us at work. She is the best.

I highly recommend getting the Spumoni from the Spaghetti Factory, and not getting the Dreyers brand. But for the sake of pictures, I am showing the Dreyers stuff I got.

Here are some more pics of me getting my hair put in cornrows. Me and the nice lady who did it, named Nefina (or Nephina, I'm not really sure), had a nice chat throughout the whole process. You may see me smiling in some of the pictures, but don't be fooled. It really hurts pretty bad when they do it, because to get nice tight braids, you have to pull the hair pretty hard. It was still totally worth it. Tons of people have given me really strange looks. Especially when we went to Raging Waters the day after. Anyway, enjoy the pictures, even if i did go overboard, and put too many on here.

Here are a couple of pictures from Raging Waters. My friend Nate reminded me of a funny truth. That truth is, as a kid, you just don't notice certain details because you are completely distracted by the fun. As kids, we never realized how run down and kind of dumpy Raging Waters looks in certain spots. Besides that, it was still really fun to spend a day there, messing around, and getting some sun.

One last pic of the cornrows taken out. For some reason I'm reminded of Lionel Richie. I don't know why.

I enjoy changing up my hair and appearance on a regular basis (heck, look at my profile pic). I've always said that your hair was something to play around with. I usually go through the cycle of buzzing my head and then growing it back out long again. Once the hair is long, I like to do funny haircuts, with the Mullet style being one of the funniest, in my opnion. Well this time, I decided that I would go and get my hair put in some cornrow braids. I just wanted to at least try it, and see what I would look like with them. I think it looks sweet.

There are few things better than going to Lake Powell. You really can't beat just relaxing on the houseboat, playing in the sun, and getting some early morning skiing sessions. We usually go to Wahweap instead of Bullfrog, and that is just fine with me. Personally I think the scenery is better at the Wahweap end of the lake anyway. Our spot this year was in Gunsight Bay, near Cookie Jar, and it was a really good spot.

We got shade as early as 5:30 in the evening which was great. Interestingly enough, every evening between 4 and 6, a storm would come by with blustery wind and some rain. After the storm passed, everything cleared up, and it made the evening really cool and refreshing. It also made for some really nice nights sleeping out on top of the houseboat, and gazing up at the stars.

This is the scene I woke up to one of the mornings.

If you have never been to Lake Powell, I highly recommend going. You won't be disappointed. And, you will never want to step foot into another cold mountain lake again. The water temperature at Powell is usually high 70's to mid 80's.

I'm not the best wakeboarder by any means, but I enjoy wakeboarding. That is, when I'm not smacking my face really hard on the water, and getting the wind knocked out of me. It happens more that I'd like to admit. Well enough talking, and on to what you are really looking forward to, more pictures.

Here is Mel skiing it up. Notice Cookie Jar rock in the background.


This was Mel's first time at Powell, and we made sure we got the most of every minute of it. We went on the Molecule tube and i'm pretty sure she broke her thumb while trying to hold on. She's so tough though, she just kept on going.

We went to the Big Sandy Hill one morning too. Pretty original name huh?

Here are some more sunrise pictures that I messed around with the lighting and editing.