The Voyages of Ben Mars

...'Tis The Season!

2009-12-13T19:14:00.000-08:00

Today I woke up feeling pretty terrible, so I decided to not embarrass myself by throwing up (or worse) at church. Instead, I watched a six-part movie on YouTube entitled "On The Lord's Errand." It's a really awesome video about Pres. Monson's life. Aside from that, I also made a Christmas tree by rolling up some pages of the BYU-I newspaper, "The Scroll." Displayed proudly at the top is an aluminum foil star. It stands about six feet tall. I'm proud of my decoration. Michael contributed the "tree skirt" (pillow case) and the present (for Caleb).

Michael also brought this little fellow with him on his last trip from home. His name is Wilbur. He lives in our living room, directly over our couch. Remember kids,"HE SEES YOU WHEN YOU'RE SLEEPING!"

MILITARY BALL

2009-12-12T13:28:00.000-08:00

This past Thursday was the BYU-Idaho ROTC Viking Battalion's Military Ball. I took Jenna Headrick as my date. We had a TON of fun! Like all things military, the dinner had a very strict set of rules. Anytime a woman sat down or stood up from the table, all the gentlemen had to rise. If a man needed to leave the table, he first had to ensure that has date was left in "good company." Obviously, elbows on the table and talking with food in your mouth were strictly forbidden. The list of rules was practically endless. The slightest infraction of any of these rules would earn someone the opportunity of drinking from "the grog."

"The grog" consisted of several ingredients that you wouldn't normally see in a drink. It contained tank fuel*, sweat (wrung from a Ranger Challenge t-shirt)*, blood* and sand. All of the items marked with *'s are items that I'm not sure whether they were real or not. All I know is that there is indeed a boot and a helmet floating in it, as seen in the picture on the left. I was very careful to observe all of the rules of the mess, so as to not have to drink the grog, but I was rather curious what it tasted like. After the dinner portion had ended, I went to the edge of the bowl and dipped in a cup. Yes, it does taste as sick as it looks!

After dinner and a talk from a general of the Idaho National Guard there was dancing. This is a picture of SFC Jones and SCF Alston bustin' some sweet moves. I guess you'd have to understand their personalities to find this picture as funny as I do!

It sure was a fun night!

Interpersonal Communications

2009-11-20T22:29:00.000-08:00

Today I had to present a group project in my communications class. The topic we were teaching was "Relationships and Intimacy," so we made up an awesome silent film to illustrate the different principles of attraction. I wrote up the story board and did most of the camera work and one of the other guys in my group did the editing. I think it actually turned out pretty funny! click here to see it on youtube.
...I hope we get an A!

Surprise Pics!

2009-11-17T20:47:00.000-08:00

This is our apartment mascot. We found him outside our window to the back alley. After this picture was taken, he had two pairs of sunglasses (one for each of his two faces) and and a handful of stickers added. Of these three pictures, this is the only one that I took. Like Karyn, I sometimes end up with a couple surprises on the ol' memory card. This time around, I found a picture of myself cooking something for the ward potluck, courtesy of Dan...

...and this beautiful picture of Mike's rotting toenails.

Thanks, Mike!

HAVE A WONDERFUL THANKSGIVING, EVERYONE!!!

Photo of the week.

2009-11-10T09:27:00.000-08:00

I have a new goal:

From now on, even if I have no time to write anything at all, I will post at least one new picture a week.

Some of my roommates took a trip to DI and picked up these wonderful Mario pajamas. I tried them on since I was the most likely candidate to fit into them.

...Yeah, they didn't quite fit!

On the same trip, they picked up this heart-shaped pillow. The other side of the pillow says "I love you."

And we all love it right back.

...Especially Mike.

It's about time...

2009-10-28T16:04:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I guess it's about time I update this thing. There's been some pretty big events in my life since my last post. The first big event was recieving my mission call. I actually opened the letter via email, since I had put my Ohio address on the mission papers. Mom and Dad (without peeking!) scanned the letter and sent me the email. I had a mission prep class right before I was expecting to open the letter, so a handful of my mission prep classmates wanted to come over and get a feel for what the big moment is like. Here's a picture of everybody waiting for me to open the attachment. Oh yeah, I'm going to the CONNECTICUT HARFTFORD MISSION!

As if that's not exciting enough, we had the Ranger Challenge for ROTC this past weekend. We competed in several military-style events, such as a modified PT (physical training) test, one-mile casualty carry, written LAND NAV test, one-rope bridge, field LAND NAV course, hand grenade assault course, MEDEVAC 9-LINE and casualty evaluation test, and a 10k ruck march with all of our gear. I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

I GOT A CAMERA!

2009-09-17T08:33:00.000-07:00

That's right... I'll say it again. I got a camera! And since every picture is worth 1000 words, keeping this blog updated will be much less of a hassle. Last week, Chris, LaTrisha, Taylor and I all went up for a ride in a Grumman Cheetah. We got to fly around the Grand Tetons and the Palisades. The view was just beautiful! Taylor had to be really cute and grab the yoke while I was holding him, so naturally we had to get pictures of it!

Oh yeah, I'm in Army ROTC. To get into the "Ranger Challenge" class that I wanted, I had to pass a PT test (running, sit-ups, push-ups), which wasn't really all that hard. I was issued two full sets of ACU's, including blouses, trousers, boots, a cap and a kevlar helmet. In addition to all that, they also gave me a large duffel bag, a ruck pack, an LBE (with two canteens,) an e-tool (folding shovel), a cold-weather sleeping bag and some other miscellaneous goodies to use for the semester. This morning, I put much of it to good use with a cadenced ruck run. My whole ranger challenge squad had to run a formation 6k, staying in cadence. That was tricky! What made it especially tricky was that each of our rucks had around 25 lbs and we were running up the tallest hill in Rexburg (past the temple.)

So far I love the ROTC program and I love BYU-Idaho. This truly is an amazing place!

The Potato State

2009-08-28T21:05:00.000-07:00

I've now been in Rexburg, Idaho for about a week. The first few days I spent mostly just gathering things for school and for my apartment. Now that I have most of that stuff out of the way, I am working as a slave at the Craze Fun Zone; the laser tag, black light mini-golf and restaurant combo that Chris manages (www.crazefunzone.com). I guess it's only fair, since I have been living under his roof and mooching off his food for the past week! Chris, LaTrisha, Taylor and I are going to take a trip up to Yellowstone on Sunday to go camping. I can't wait! Unfortunately, I do not have a camera out here, so I probably won't be able to post any cool pictures of the trip. Oh well. I'll see what I can do!
...Until next time, kids!

"Teeth of Wisdom"

2009-08-15T14:16:00.000-07:00

That's right... I now have a blog! Now that I'm finally leaving the nest, I figured that it's about time I follow the examples of all my siblings and start a blog. I'll try to update it just as frequently as life at BYU-I will allow.
I might as well officially start my blog off by talking about my wisdom teeth, which I had removed on Monday. I learned about two weeks ago that all four were likely to sprout during my mission, pushing other teeth out of the way, if I did not get them taken out. The surgery wasn't too bad. I still think that the worst part was when they stuck my arm with the IV... I am NOT a fan of needles!!! I'm recovering like a champ and was able to start running again on Wednesday. The puffiness didn't last very long, either. My teeth are now mission-ready!