Hi you!

Here’s my 4-pronged update:

Writing

I’m getting the last set of feedback from my mentor any time now. She didn’t say much in her e-mail so I’m kinda anxious. I think I half expected her e-mail to say “I’m halfway through and it’s so much better.” Instead, I got “You’ll have feedback this week.” It’s not really a knock on her or anything. The lack of detail just makes me more anxious.

On a different note, I came up with an idea for a funny commercial. Because my song is pretty much done, I was wanting to video something else. So the timing is perfect. I don’t want to ruin anything but it’s a twist on a popular game.  I’ve pretty much written the commercial and will look at filming it over the next couple weeks. Get ready!

After that I have ideas for another song and another commercial. So hopefully I can start cranking them out faster. The song took exactly seventeen million years and I don’t have that kind of time for another.

Singing

My twin sister and her fiancé came to church to watch me sing Saturday. I think they enjoyed it. I hoped so as I custom picked songs that are Cody-friendly. Afterwards, she asked me to sing at their wedding so I think it went well!

Oh, regarding the song video I’ve been posting about (for what seems like forever), I finally sent all the pieces to the editor! At this point, it’s out of my hands until I get something back for review.

In a nutshell, the editor is going to stick the four pieces together and sync them up. Because I’m singing to audible piano music in each take, I’m worried it will have some kind of weird reverb or echo. Or that it will be really loud. I honestly have no idea what to expect when I get the finished product back (my editor friend is really good but he’s not a miracle worker). If I have to start over because of some unforeseen issue, that would suck.

Enjoying the Area

We’ve been doing the tourist thing with my sister and her fiancé all week. I’m going to post half of the trips on this post and half on the next. That’s how much stuff is going on!

Here’s the first half of the week:

Sunday: Lake Powell

We rented a boat and took it out on the lake!

The weather was amazing and we were out the entire day. Here are my favorite moments:

1. My sister is awesome at backing up a truck and trailer. OK I could make a lesbian stereotype here but I won’t 🙂 I get the concept of backing a trailer. But, in the moment, it’s hard to remember. Well she was like a pro. I think she’s going to retain her amateur status, though, so she can back trucks up in the Olympics.

2. I am awful, just AWFUL, at driving boats. We rented a tube and wanted to take turns on it. When it was my turn, Cory zoomed around the lake perfectly. I shot back and forth across the wake and yadda, yadda, yadda. Because of her skill, we all went on the tube while she drove the boat. Then it was her turn to tube and mine to drive. Wanna know how good I was? Well I pretty much drowned her fiancé. Then I sent Cory flying into her fiance’s face. After like 3 minutes, Windy said “Yeah, I’m not going out there while you drive.” I was awful!! I just couldn’t figure out how to turn the boat properly with a tube attached. Shouldn’t it be like the easiest thing in the world? You slow down, you turn, you accelerate? Somehow I messed it up. Every time.

3. We stalked a tour boat through a canyon. The canyon was so narrow we didn’t think it could make it, so we followed it in. The experience was pretty cool. The boat driver was very good (a regular Cory) and steered it quite far into the canyon. We were behind another regular boat and thought they were stalking too. But it turns out they were employees of the tour. When the giant tour boat made it as far as it could go, the smaller boat blocked the way while the tour boat turned around. So then we made a u-turn and had to outrun them out of the canyon. It was like a cool boat chase from the movies!!! Except the tour boat inched along and we lost them after about 5 feet.

Monday: Horseshoe Bend

I’ve been to Horseshoe Bend a couple times this year but always love going back. It’s so beautiful. Actually I thought I posted about it recently, but can’t find anything. LOL it’s kind of cool that I’ve posted enough where I’m forgetting things.

Anyway, north of the Grand Canyon, there’s a gorge shaped like a horseshoe:

Like the Grand Canyon, it was carved by the Colorado River. So, non-technically, it’s kind of like the far north end of the canyon.

People can say what they want about the Grand Canyon, but Horseshoe Bend is pretty amazing.

A few notes:

1. You can actually take boats down the river. In fact, it’s a very popular fly fishing spot. The last time we went, Windy and I saw several fishermen standing around. They looked like ants from the top.

2. I really want to kayak down the river but there’s no place to unload upstream. However, there’s a service that will tow a kayak upriver. Then you can kayak downstream back to the service location. Very cool! I really want to do that this summer.

3. As you might have noticed, there are no guard rails on the edge of Horseshoe Bend. You can walk right up to the edge. Because of that, it’s actually become a rather popular suicide destination. It’s sad but true. It’s interesting to me that, after a number of casualties, they’ve never erected anything.

Tuesday: Hanging Gardens and Antelope Canyon

Tuesday morning, I brought them out to the place where I take my weekly walks (and sometimes write). Yep, it’s the Hanging Gardens trail I’ve mentioned several times before. I thought that it would start to get busy in the summer. But, with everything else around, it’s just not that popular. We were out there exploring for over an hour and only saw a couple of people. It was nice! I enjoyed showing them where I get a lot of inspiration.

Later that day, we went on a tour of Antelope Canyon. It is SUCH a cool place! Basically, when it rains, water is diverted (naturally) to the entrance of the canyon. You see, Antelope canyon is basically a bottleneck where the water builds up. Because the entrance is only a few yards wide, the water can rise up to 20-30 feet. Then it rushes through the canyon. After thousands of years, it’s carved these amazing walls:

Because of the flooding dangers, you can only visit the area in tour groups. Typically, the groups are about 15 people. But somehow, we ended up in a tiny group with only 2 other people. It was really cool. The guide is versed in the photographic intricacies of the canyons and kept borrowing our cameras to take pictures. Here’s one of my favorites:

Random Learnings or Stories

It turns out that we all LOVE those “Would You Rather” questions. You know, the ones that are like “Would you rather lose your arms or your legs?”

We spent hours asking and answering random questions. Some were really random and gross (like eating all types of bugs and stuff). Others were more poignant.

I wanted to share some of our favorites (or at least the ones that caused the most debate): 

1. If you had to save your pets or a random stranger from a burning building, which would you choose?

2. Would you choose to never say “I’m sorry” or “I love you” again?

3. Would you rather eat a chocolate covered ant or a Chicken in a Biskit cracker? (NOTE: I ask this because Windy detests the crackers and actually picked the ant)

4. Would you free 100 guilty people from prison or send 1 innocent person to prison?

5. Would you rather be able to fly one foot off the ground or be invisible only when holding your breath?

6. Would you rather know how you’re going to die or when?

7. If you could live forever, would you?


Let me know if you want my answers and I’ll provide them.