ID Me!

With winter going nowhere soon out here, I've taken the opportunity to do some inside cleaning projects. I never thought I'd live in Methuen again anytime soon, but living back in my childhood home gave me the opportunity to rummage through some of my old stuff from yesteryear. I've scrounged up some of my ID's from over the past few years. I'm getting old quick!



I still remember the day I got my license. I was a junior in high school, playing football, and this picture was taken on a Friday afternoon right before we played Haverhill High School. I'm actually wearing my white football jearsey, as was tradition on game days.


This was a alien resident card when I was living in Japan, 1998-2000. We were told to always have this on us, but I don't remember ever having to show it to anyone.



One of may BYU IDs I had. I think I lost about a half dozen or so. You had to be completely shaved before they took your picture. What other school do they make you shave your facial hair daily!?!


My AZ license. Gotta love the expiration date. Their licenses are good for 40 years!!!



My current license. For some reason it still have my high school height on it - they never even asked me my height or weight.

I don't know where my UTAH drivers license is.

My sister, Elaine...

Since moving back to my hometown of Methuen, I've taken on a few self-given projects around the house. A few months ago, I was slaving in the attic installing some recessed lighting, and made a rather interesting discover. After removing a nailed down floor board, I found this letter:

I actually showed Elaine this letter the last time she was up from DC, and she doesn't remember writing it, but still had a chuckle at her young self.

Dork.

New York, New York

My friend Hannah was going to be in NYC for a business conference over the weekend, so we decided to meet up there and go site-seeing and catch up. I had been to NYC a few times before, but was still eager to see the hustle and bustle again. For the last few years, Hannah has been one of my closest friends and continues to be despite living on the other side of the country, in sunny, warm, perfect weather (I could go on here), Arizona.

I left Saturday via Lucky Star Bus (yeah baby!). The bus ride itself was long and boring, besides the part where the girl next to me threw up into a plastic bag. I'll skip the details. I got into the Big Apple in the early afternoon and spend much of my afternoon just walking around and seeing some new sites as well as some I had seen before in previous trips there.

My Saturday night was an experience. See preceding blog below.

Some random things I observed about the city and of myself:

1. There are alot of Chipotle's restaruants there. My favorite place to eat! I think I could literally eat one of their steak fajita burritos everyday for the rest of my life. If you have never eaten their burritos, I highly suggest them. If you don't love them, you should get your brain checked out.

2. I enjoy people watching. Sure, I love to see the sites and sounds of New York, but just walking the streets and seeing some many different types of people and hearing a myriad of languages being spoke at every street corner was amusing.

3. I'm pretty sure you can get some stuff cheaper in NYC than anywhere else. I stopped into a handful of stores including Gap, Banana Republic, etc. If you shop the sale racks (or the welfare racks as I like to call them) you can get some great deals. And don't be ashamed to buy from the welfare racks - I shop them exclusively. I refuse to pay full price on stuff myself.

4. Street vendors don't wash their hands. My mom would faint.

5. New Yorkers are generally nice people despite all the negativity that surrounds them. I saw a handful of good deeds that even small town America would be proud of.

6. New York is a big city, but still a pretty good walking city.

7. I felt bad not calling my Uncle Craig to let him know I was there. He lives right in Manhattan (I think?) and I don't see him that much.

Here are some pictures (in no particular order) of the rest of the trip:


Me and Hannah as Rockefeller Center. We thought about going ice skating, but Hannah figured she would save herself the embarrassment since she had never been on skates before.


In Time Square.


Before Hannah arrived I took a stroll down to the financial district and then to the water front, where I saw this - the US Airways plane that landed on the Hudson River a few days back. This almost goes without saying, but it was surreal to see a plane right off the pier.


The present day scene at where the World Trade Towers once stood.


I took a tour of the 9/11 memorial. It was a fitting homage to the people who lost their lives that day. Between the videos that were playing, the pictures of those that were lost, and remembrances written by loved ones, you could only feel compassion and humility. This was my first time seeing this memorial. Well worth the visit.


A steel girder from the wreckage of 9/11. This simple piece of architecture seems to tell a little piece of the story by itself.

I happened upon a small film shoot going on in the financial district.

This was a little celebration going on in Chinatown that I stumbled upon. I wasn't exactly sure what was going on, but I think it was a celebration for a new store opening up.

Time Square

The NYC Public Library.

Self-portrait in my hotel room.

31 Dates in 31 Days...

...is more of a punishment than an opportunity, if you ask me.

Right before my trip to New York, my friend Lumina suggested I go on a blind date in NYC with her friend Tamara, a recent Columbia grad and journalist/writer for the Good Morning America show on CBS. I'm always game to meet new people in new places, so I quickly agreed. Plus, I didn't have any solid plans my first night in town.

Tamara (pronounced like 'camera') recently turned 31 and came up with this over-ambitious (crazy?) idea to go on 31 dates with 31 different guys in 31 consecutive days, none of which could exceed $31. All 31 dates would be "blogged" about on her website, made especially for this project. At that point, we (the dates) would seemingly be know by our number, rather than our name, even though names are, of course, mentioned. Why someone would purposely put themselves through this is beyond me. She has ambitions of writing a book about her experiences. I was number three.

I really had nothing to loose. I knew it might be the only time I really ever see her. And, c'mon, I definitely had no plans to fall for a girl that lives four hours away.

Before I go on to tell my experience, here is her story, straight from her blog:

3 Point Shot - Chris
Saturday, January 17, 2009
17Jan2009 Posted by Tamara


My friend, Lumina, warned me about him.
"He's hot, Tam. You might end up liking him."
Check.
And checkmate.
I hustled, zig-zagging my way around Penn Station to meet Chris outside Madison Square Garden. He had travelled all the way down from his home outside of Boston and I wanted this avid sports fan to do something special in the city. So some tough detective work helped us track down a cheap pair of tickets online to the Knicks v. 76ers game.
I was on the phone with him trying to figure out where he was.
"I'm standing outside wearing a white hat," he said.
From half a block away I spotted him. His stature struck me from afar. Quickly I came up to him and he drew me into a tight embrace.
This guy knows how to play the game well.
We made our way up to the nose-bleed section and found our seats among the packed coliseum. It was a close game but neither of us was really paying attention. Instead we sat and talked about... well, everything.

He makes sacrifices for his family. He still plays baseball. And he cuts through the bull quickly.
Chris is really easy to be around.
I found myself telling him things that I haven't told some of my closest friends.
**Time Out**
Look.
I know that's not the way to play the dating game... starting out by pouring out your most embarrassing thoughts, sharing your biggest fears about marriage, and letting him see more than just "me on my best first-date behavior." I know I played all my cards too early.
But I felt like I was in a no-lose situation.
Chris lives four hours away. He knows I'm dating, well, a couple dozen other guys or so. I wasn't sure if anything would ever happen with him.
But the truth is, I'd like to see him again.
The Knicks seemed to be giving too much up too. They kept losing possession in the last quarter. Any time they'd score three points, the fans would scream.
"Threeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!"

Chris and I kept pushing further. Sharing more than we probably should have. Crossing conversational boundaries most people wouldn't. Stepping out of bounds I typically don't when first meeting.
So I'm not sure how well I did there. Did I commit a true dating game violation? Was this a technical foul?
The Knicks lost.
By ten points.
Looks like everyone wasn't on their game.

Before you go on, I must mentioned that Tamara, being the person she is, talked very highly of all her dates (so far), so don't think anything highly of me. That is , for every girl that might put me under the category of "good guy," I'm sure there are a handful that would just as likely put me under "douchebag." And I'm perfectly fine with that.

Tamara was a class act. We did, indeed, talk for hours about everything. We mostly talked about being single at our age in the Mormon community and the challenges it often presents. If you are Mormon, no explanation is necessary. If you aren't Mormon, no explanation would really help. It's just a strange sub-culture you would have to experience to really grasp. I guess being a "menace to society" wasn't as bad as I thought (sorry, another Mormon reference there!). I couldn't believe how often we saw eye to eye on, well, just about everything.

The Knicks game was fun. I was shocked to learn that you could actually get tickets for $10 to a sporting event in New York. That's unheard of in Boston, a city the doesn't compare in size to NYC. Not that I'm proud that Boston has exorbitant ticket prices, but along those lines I'm glad we don't whore them out for $10, either. Did the Knicks stink that bad? I guess so. Either way, it played to our advantage to get cheap tickets. Hell, $10 was about my limit to see the Knicks, the doormat of the NBA for the last 10 years. ! We did talk nearly the entire game. For a short while, I was pretty sure some of the surrounding people we going to say, "shut up, we're trying to watch the game." But nothing.



As mentioned previously, the Knicks game was only $20 for the pair of tickets. We still had $11 more dollars at our discretion. We agreed on hot chocolate - the Mormon coffee. The local Dunkin Donuts would do. The hot chocolate somehow turned into Diet Pepsi (my drink of choice). I don't even remember how long we were there chatting at our run-down table in the back, but I'm pretty sure that if there we no such thing as Sunday morning, we might still be chatting.

Tamara taught me a new word, "biscuit." No, not biscuit in the tradition food sense. This term is a perfect description of those young girls who are light and fluffy on the outside, but inside lack substance. They are generally the young twenty-somethings that go to local community college, or beauty school and have never really ventured out to make much of their lives. They live off daddy and expect hand-outs and refuse to take any risks in life. We all know people like this. There is nothing wrong with them, they are just annoying. Ok, maybe there is something wrong with them. I've always just used a long descriptive to try to explain these girls, but now "biscuit" will suffice. Thanks for the new word, Tamara!



I'm glad I made a new friend.

Her website is below and updated daily. I highly recommend following the madness.

http://31datesin31days.com/

Christmas in Emily's neck of the woods in "Utard"

Ok, so this really has nothing to do with me at all, but I thought it might be fun to post some pictures of my little sister's Christmas out in Utah. We had the entire (Mark) Sturgis family out to Utah last Christmas, which was a blast, but this Christmas, Emily and Jared played host to Jared's brother's family from San Francisco. Does that all make sense? Oh well, here are some random pictures from their Christmas since many of you know my little sister from either BYU days or from Methuen. (Em, I hope you don't mind me taking these pics from your blog!)


Em and Jared at an archery range. What a fun activity! I need to look into that around Boston.


Em's first try.


Jared's first try.

Emily and her sister-in-law, Kim.

Emily and her niece, Marlo.

The famous Sturgis "bomb" cookies. For as long as I can remember, my sisters and mom have always made these cookies around the holidays. Awesome cookies!

Em got a subscription to Domino Magazine. Am I suppossed to know what this is? Apparently, she was thrilled about it.

Snowshoeing. I miss those Rocky Mountains of Utah. Oh yeah, I miss Em and Jared, too.

Christmas 2008...cancelled, sort of.

Having three sisters who are all married sometimes poses some logistical challenges, especially aroung the holidays. As much as the entire family tries to get together for Christmas, it generally only happens every other year. That is, we will have a Sturgis Christmas one year and then the year after, my sisters have Christmas with their husbands' families. And the pattern sort of repeats like that. This year was one of the "off" years, in which my sisters would be spending the holidays with their husbands families. So...Emily and Jared stayed in SLC and had Jared's family out to visit, Annie and Brandon went to Buffalo, NY to spend Christmas with the Dayton's and Elaine and Mike made the usual trek back to the Boston area. I, being the eternally single guy, stuck around these (Methuen, MA) parts as well.

Since this was an "off" year (sorry, I don't know what else to call it), and having my parents recently retire/move to Japan, the Sturgis clan decided not to do presents, which was fine by me. It's not too often then you don't need to go Christmas shopping. Although I scored a little package of goodies from Japan and a handmade Alpaca wool scarf that Elaine made me, Christmas was rather uneventful in terms of gift giving, but being with the family that was around more than made up for it.

Some random pics:


Maya on my tummy. I've seen quite a bit of Maya recently as she was up here in November for a funeral, I was down in DC for Thanksgiving, and now she was back up for a week for Christmas.


Maya at the Qualter's house on the massage chair. I wasn't there when this picture was taken, but I'm sure it kept Maya thoroughly entertained for a good 20-30 seconds.


Maya and Grampa Mark (Sturgis) playing some tunes on my guitars. Maya's been getting more use out of them than me lately.


Grampa Mark...professional baby book reader.

Let it snow, let it snow...and then let the weather get to 60 degrees

Elaine and Mike picked a rather treacherous day to fly into Logan from DC for the Christmas holiday. The weekend right before Christmas, the New England area got belted with a good foot (or more) or snow as a follow up to the horrific ice storm that left so many without power for weeks! Their flight was delayed an hour or so and to make matters worse, one of their suitcases was lost. All in all, what should have been a quick pick-up at the airport turned into a 5 hour ordeal. Gotta love flying around the holidays!

It snowed on and off pretty much throughout the weekend. Luckily, Mike Q was there to give a hand, as well as my dad who was enjoying his last week in the states before flying back to rejoin my mother in Japan. (He actually flew back on Christmas day).

Furtunately, a year or so ago, my parents had some friends that moved to Florida (?) and graciously left them a snowblower. I had never used a snowblower before, but after a heck of a time getting it started, it made easy removal of the snow from the driveway.


Putting Mike Q to work! Even though Elaine and Mike see flurries of snow in DC, I don't think it snows nearly as bad down there.


Mike Q and Maya observing the snowfall on the back deck.



I love snowblowers!



So does Mike!

Ironically, less than a week later, the weather got up to around 60 degrees and most of the snow was gone. Go figure.

Ice storms and more...

Like a previous post mentioned, we had a severe ice storm out here in the northern Boston area that extended well into New Hampshire and Maine (I think). Its been over a week since the actual ice storm, but there are still people without electricity! I've heard numberous stories about trees leveling cars and crashing through windows/homes, etc, so when the extend of the damage to our house was a few large branches on the roof, I considered it lucky! Again, my dad is still in town for the holiday season visiting from Japan, so he was happiest to know that there was no significant damage to his brand new roof he had installed last summer. He got a quote of $700 to remove the branches and the tree, which is not necessarily unreasonable, but still alot to pay for something you can (in most cases) do yourself. So, we spent the next Saturday cutting away. I was the lucky one who got to climb all over the roof to start removing the branches. We only got about half of the work done - one more Saturday should do the trick.


It ended up not being as bad as it sounded when it came crashing on the roof at 3am.






After the smaller stuff was removed.

I can see cleary now the ...old windows are gone.

A month or so ago I tracked down a guy via Craigslist (I love that website) and got a great deal on new windows/installation. One reason he gave me a good price was because I offered my assistance in installing the windows. Coincidentally, my dad was in town (from Japan) so he helped out as well. All in all, we installed all new windows on the lower lever of the house and finished just after noon time.

Mike, a general contractor/handyman from nearby Haverhill and me.


Installing windows.

I should've seen it coming

Last night we had a substantial ice storm throughout New England that left branches and trees all over the place, not to mention leaving thousands without power/electricity. Unfortunately, we were a victim, being the recipient of some large branches that have now nestled comfortably on the roof.

I sent an email out to some of my friends in AZ to let them know of my 3am debacle last night as my dad and I assessed the damage of the partially fallen tree on the roof.

Here is an email I received from Garrett, a friend in sunny AZ:

Sturgis,
I am glad that both you and I are all right. Last night and early this morning I also had a scare. I let the dogs out last night and as I stepped on the patio my feet got extremely cold. I hurried and rushed back inside to escape the 60 degree weather barely escaping frost bite. Then this morning as I approached my car I saw that it was frozen, luckily as I got closer I could see that what I thought was ice was in fact dry dust from the previous days 70 degree sunny day.

Looks like we both have guardian angels looking after us.

I will keep your family in my prayers, and please pray that is does not get below 40 degrees here because I may have to open my winter coat storage box and that would be an inconvenience.

I should've seen it coming.

My new watch!

A few months ago I had three watches that I had been neglecting - all three had dead batteries. So finally I decided to take them to a watch repair place to get them fixed. With three newly fixed watches I figured they would last at least a few years, but to my surprise, two of them stopped working within a month. Of course I had no idea where the receipt was and I also realized that is was probably a problem with the watch's beyond the battery. Anyways, I've been shopping around for a kinetic watch - one that had no battery, it works by your movement. I found one that I really liked while reading MENS HEALTH magazine, the Seiko Coutura series. Strangley, as part of their advertising, you could text them a picture of your wrist and they would send back a picture of how the watch would look on your wrist. Here it is! Wow, it looks so real! (I hope my sarcasm is obvious!)

I have five watches now, none of them that nice besides a Swiss Army watch that an old boss bought for me about 5 years ago. As far as I can remember, I have never bought a watch. Maybe this will be this year's Christmas present to myself. Let's hope it looks better than the picture.

BYU's loss to Utah

Well, I watched the BYU-Utah game a few weeks ago with mostly strangers when I was down in DC. It was brutal to watch the Cougars fall to the Utes, but that's just the way it is. My little sister Emily sent me this hilarious video. I wonder where they got the footage:

Random Pictures from Thanksgiving week in Washington DC

Maya loves getting her picture taken. She knows how to take pictures on my blackberry now and insists on me taking her picture with it all the time. It's cute. She loves to pose.


Mark, Mei-le, Dave, and Julie at Big Ben's Chili Bowl. We then went on to Busboys and Poets for dinner after dinner.


This was one of the funniest things I've seen in a while. Maybe you had to be there to appreciate it. Driving back from Home Depot with Mike, we stumbled upon Segway training for the DC police. They looked like a family of ducks crossing the street.


Mike is usually good at teaching me a new song or two everytime I am down there.


While Elaine drives, I play entertainer for Maya in the back seat.


Elaine and Maya at the dinner table


Maya is so smart! She knows alot of sign language and picks out everything in her books.!


Family picture right before I flew home to Boston.


Maya and Momma

Thanksgiving Day

We had Thanksgiving with a ton of other people, most of whom I didn't know. Kimberly played a gracious host and the food was delicious!


Maya insisted on wiping the floors with the Swiffer.


Gathering in the living room.


Some of the food!

Kimberly, Liz, and Tomicah cutting the turkey