Can't Get Enough Sharp

Congratulations to John Sharp for his awesome first round KO against Cody Udy last Friday at Jeremy Horn's Elite Fight Night. It was wicked! This was his long awaited return to the cage and it was an awesome win. I can't hardly wait for John's next fight. What a warrior. Dave Komarov was also on the fight card and won by submission: rear naked choke. What sucked was that I was down in Orem weighing in for the grappling tournament which was taking place the next day, and I missed Dave's fight. I saw the submission from the lobby of the Davis Conference Center as I was going through security. I heard it was a good fight though. I'm so proud of Team Absolute!
Go and check out awesome photos of John's fight at Miyo's blog. Set 1 Set 2. One of my favorite photos of all time is the second one in set 2 where Rob, Cam and The Wrecker are all congratulating John. What a joyful moment. My little heart absolutely loves that image. Great work, Miyo!

Happy St. Patty's Day To Ye

I decided that tomorrow I'm going to go Ye Olde Village Baker for lunch and having a corned beef and cabbage sandwich. Because that's what you do on St. Patrick's Day, eh. Oh, and then I'm going to listen to a truckload of Dropkick Murphy's and Flogging Molly. Yeah, and then lift up a stein and sing loudly and off key. How about ye?

Going International

Is my awesome cousin, Bjorn reading this? If so, how in the world did you find this? I'm hoping that it's you and not some German creeper with the same name. I'd love to get back in touch with you!

Fight Night Recap

On February 20th, the Throwdown ETC in Orem put on another fight night. Both Steve Sharp and Camrann Pacheco were fighting again. They were AWESOME! I'm so proud of my guys!

Camrann was up against Olly Bradstreet and won by split decision. It was a really great fight to watch if you like jujitsu. Cam had Olly in his guard almost the whole time and was working submissions from there. Cam had a wicked triangle on Olly at the end of the second round but Olly was saved by the bell. Seriously, this guy was purple and gurgling. Cam's jits is tight! Man, I love Cam.

Steve was fighting Dayne Aristizabal, a wicked jujitsu fighter. I've seen him fight at the last couple of Throwdown events and submission grappling tournaments and have been really impressed with him. When I heard that he was taking on Steve, I was really excited for that fight to happen. This guy has got to be fearless for him to have had only two fights prior and then taking a fight with seasoned Steve freaking Razor Sharp. Hello! I admire him for that. Steve ended up getting a knockout at the end of the first round. They stood up the whole round. It was awesome. Great exchanges.

Anyway, you can read more about it here at Absolute MMA's blogspot. Also check out Miyo's incredible photos: Cam's fight Steve's fight

Jeremy Horn's Elite Fight Night is happening on March 27th, 7:30pm @ The Davis Conference Center in Layton. Absolute MMA has a couple fighters in it. John Sharp (Steve's bro) is fighting Cody Udy and Dave Komarov is up against Eric Tilletson. I'm anxious to see John's fight. This guy is so great and just stepped in last week to fill in for one of our other fighters. He's been training hard and I just know that he's going to come out of this with a win. Let me know if you want to come. If I get tickets from the gym our fighters get more money. So support Absolute fighters!

Grumpy Pants

I had a recent house guest. She thought that my little eye mask was hilarious and decided to take some flattering pictures with my camera while I was sleeping.

I will snap you like a chicken! Waking up is hard for me.

Also, it may appear that I'm naked, but I'm not. I'm an active sleeper and don't think twice when I wake up with one of my arms through the head hole on my T-shirt and my top sheet wrapped 4 times around my leg. Or when my mattress is hanging three feet off of my box spring. Or when I wake up on the floor with one leg still on the bed. Oh yes, it happens.

My excuse for the lack of blogging is not that Facebook took me away (even though I do enjoy Facebook quite a bit), but the fact that I haven't had internet at my house for about a month now. I was "borrowing" the internet from my neighbors at my duplex and then they moved. I've just been too lazy/busy to get my own internet access after that. But I'm hooking it up this week.

VD

Valentine's Day.............HELLO!

I don't know if you know this but I LOVE being single. I really do. Not that I wouldn't jump on the chance to be in a relationship or get married, but I am really quite content with the fact that I am single. I haven't always felt that way, but I'm really happy about some changes that I've made lately and I'm really loving my life. I'm well aware that this paragraph sounds exceptionally cheesey, but I don't really care.

So as I think about Valentine's Day and my lack of romantic involvement, I dwell upon the idea that I couldn't settle for anyone that wouldn't know me so well as to get me the box of candy that I saw at Target the other day. It was a holographic picture of Darth Vader and above his head it said, "I Am Your.........", and then you move the box slightly and it's a picture of Anakin with ".....Valentine" underneath him. It was awesome. Yes, I am also well aware that I am a total dork, but I'm ok with that.

Awesome Quote

"He is so disciplined that he makes disciplined people look lazy."

-Joe Rogan on GSP after his fight against BJ Penn

Holy Hot Dang: Fighter Edition

It doesn't get much better than Georges St-Pierre. He's one of my favorite fighters. He's probably everyone's favorite fighter. And he's not too hard to look at either. He just seems like a really classy guy compared to some of the thugs out there. Check out this recent article. I appreciate the way he wants to help out the image of ultimate fighting. Also, go to this page, which is Georges home page of his website. Just open it up and wait there. A French rap song will start playing and for some reason I find it hilarious. It's just so bad. I need to somehow find out what it is and download it because it just lightens my mood tremendously whenever I hear it. I crack myself up. Sheesh.


So anyway, check out UFC 94 this Saturday on Pay Per View. Georges St-Pierre is going to be defending his welterweight title against B.J. Penn. It should be a really good fight, even though I'm confident that GSP will be winning the fight in the first round. Ok, maybe early in the second. In any case, it will be epic. Let's have a discussion about it later.

Eye Candy

Chris, Ben, Levi, Rob, Camrann, and Robert

Some of my favorite men! I took this right before the fights started last Saturday night. Update on that coming soon! In the meantime, check out Miyo's excellent photos of Robert's and Riley's fights. She was front row to the cage. Lucky!

Confession

I park in the same spot everyday at work. I back into a space on the far side of the upper parking lot. The reason for this is because the conformation of the parking lot makes it so that I feel like a race car driver when I'm leaving. I peel out and make a hard right to avoid the little island next to me and then a hard left hugging another island, then a hard right to the exit of the parking lot and then crank left immediately onto the drive. It's awesome. And I get mad whenever someone snakes my spot. People ask me all the time why I park in that same far away slot even when the parking lot is empty and I never tell them for fear that they will see how brilliant my parking spot really is and want the thrill that the parking spot will inevitably give them. So don't tell anyone.

Gerald McBoing Boing

I was introduced to this cartoon by someone who had a Gerald McBoing Boing tattoo. I'm a big fan of Mr. McBoing Boing. And I'm pretty sure that it's the greatest last name ever. If I were to marry, I would want that last name. Or McCool. Or McQueen. Obviously it's got to be a Mc something.

On a somewhat related note, I have to ask why all boys are naturally gifted with the talent of making sound effects? I grew up with all brothers and they were amazing at imitating a huge explosion or the sound of a machine gun. I always tried to join in but my machine gun noise (no matter how long I practiced privately in the confines of my room) was more like just saying rat-ta-tat-tat. I'm ashamed. I think there is a sound effect gene that is only found on the Y chromosome.

Awesome Quote of the Week

"I love hot dogs! I don't even care what's in them.......crack, babies, whatever."

-Ben (at Jeremy Horn's Elite Fight Night)

Work? What's That About?

Yesterday was a pretty chill day at the lab. Only a handful of us were there, and we only did the most minimal amount of work that one could possibly do. Only the MUST DO'S were done. And unfortunately the work I do comprised most of the MUST DO list.

Here are some of the guys I work with in a nice panoramic view of the lab.
And here is a snippet of what we spent part of the day doing while waiting to pull things from the incubators.

They all might be in their 30's, but they sure can regress to their teens in the drop of a dime.

This is Quinton, who previously had a full, grizzly beard. He came in sporting a Merry Christmoustache.

My PIC, Ashley, left this in my locker just before she left for home in Texas.

She made a VTS doll and a Batman symbol out of masking tape. She's made these infamous "tape babies" for others in the lab over the last year. This is my first time receiving one. I feel so honored. Best Christmas present ever!

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas, surrounded with friends and family and good food!

Welcome to Fight Club

"Welcome to fight club!" That's what Pedro says to me anytime I get hurt or am feeling tortured because I'm often contorted into positions that are super uncomfortable (that's an understatement). You want to know how many times I've been welcomed to fight club? Too many. I am very familiar with fight club, let me just say that. I've been training regularly for a whole year now. I can't believe it. It's had it's ups and downs. Overall I've enjoyed it immensely, but there are days (that sometimes stretch into weeks) that I ask myself why I subject myself to this. But something always brings me back. Sometimes it's the people that call me and and ask if I'm coming in that night, and tell me to bring my best moves because they're ready to put the squeeze on me. Sometimes it's just the overwhelming sense of accomplishment that I feel after I've done a hard workout. That feeling is addictive. But mostly it's because the sport is just so damn cool. I love how disciplined and focused that you have to be in order to really get it down. I love how technical it is. I just really love it. Not everyday, but the feeling always returns somehow.

I just got in one last jujitsu session before the gym closed for the holidays. We were working on the same takedowns that we were doing when I chipped my tooth last week. I forgot my mouthguard at home (I scrubbed it and left it on a towel to dry instead of putting it in my gym bag) and came down hard on my partner's head. "Welcome to fight club!" Shut up. I was a little tentative tonight when we started, but I got over it.

My pal, Riley, is fighting on January 3rd in Jeremy Horn's Elite Fight Night. He's looking really good! He always trains really hard and very regularly. This is his first fight and I'm really excited to see how it goes. I'm a huge fan of this guy. Here he is tonight getting some fluid from his ear drained by our coach, Rob. Such a pleasant experience.

Robert Densley is also fighting in the Elite Fight Night. He was there tonight doing rounds with Camran, Riley, Keith and Kyle. I love watching those guys. All very talented athletes!

Here are a couple of my other pals, Kyle and Keith. And yes, they're twins. Keith is out here in Utah for a few weeks/months visiting Kyle and training at Absolute with us. He came here from Virginia where he's been training in MMA regularly. It's nice to have him here. He taught me an extra cool half-guard sweep the other day. I tried using it tonight but it just got me in more trouble. That's the story of my training.

Come the the Fight Night on 03 January 2009. Oh, and don't forget to watch UFC 92 on 27 December 2008. The fight card looks AWESOME! I'm actually going to skip the wedding reception of a good friend of mine to watch these fights. It's going to be that good. Now I just need to find someplace to watch it. Hmmm? Any takers?

Awesome Quote of the Week

Mark, my older brother, and I went to the Nickelcade a few days ago. I just knew that he'd love that Star Wars game that I've told you guys about numerous times before. Well, we were at the level where you deposit your missiles into the main reactor, but in order to get to the main reactor you have to defend against massive amounts of TIE fighters. You are playing the role of Luke Skywalker in this game, naturally, and therefore are in a X-wing fighter. Mark wasn't very good at knocking off the TIE fighters before they aimed their missiles at him. He died frequently. After a few attempts, he turns to me and with exasperation in his voice says, "Ness, I could totally take on these guys if I were in the Falcon." And you could tell that he really believed that.

Resourcefulness Is His Game

Remember the guy wearing this shirt? Well, he came in wearing another classic:

A MacGyver shirt! I used to LOVE that show as a kid. We weren't allowed to watch TV during the school week, except when we displayed exceptional behavior and finished our homework. My brothers and I would always choose an episode of MacGyver. I recently saw a re-run and am baffled as to why I thought this show was so spectacular.
It must have been the mullet.

Getting Festive

My mother travels to Germany almost every year to see her friends and family. Two years ago she brought back a "Raucher Manchen" (a little smoking man) and gave it to me for Christmas. The torso comes off, you light incense cones and replace the top. The smoke from the incense comes out of its mouthhole, resembling him smoking a pipe. I was thrilled to have one. It was made out of wood from the Black Forrest in the southeastern part of Germany.

Last year she brought back a three story "Weihnacht's Pyramide" (Christmas Pyramid). It's a traditional German nativity. My dad purchased one on his mission to Germany in nineteen seventy something, and we displayed it in the dining room as the centerpiece every Christmas. I always wished that I had one. It wasn't until I was at home last Christmas that I made it known to my mother. I asked her if I could inherit dad's. She just smiled and said that perhaps one day I might get one. I was beyond happy when I opened my present a few days later and it was a Weihnacht's Pyramide. Mom said that she was so surprised when I mentioned how badly I wanted one. She thought that I may have peeked at the presents. Nope. She just picked the perfect present.

Isn't it beautiful?

I wonder if I'm going to get something from Erzgebirge this year. No pressure though.

I Know Her! We're Total Pals!

You know those extra awesome people that make you feel like a rock star because somehow they want to be your friend? And you are automatically exponentially cooler just because of your association with them? Well, that's how I feel about my friend, Tiffany. Tragically, she moved to Delaware last August and now I can only recommend getting to know her through her blog. The woman is unmatched in sassiness and wit. Prior to reading her latest post, I didn't know that I could laugh as loud as I did and for as long as I did. The giveaway she recently had was unlike any other. I was digging back into the archives and want to suggest that you read this and this and this. You won't be disappointed. Man, don't you just think I'm infinitely cooler now?

Who Peed In My Panties?

That's a great question, Liesl. How about you try to figure that one out yourself.

She's Crafty

You bet your boots I made it all by myself! Best snowflake this side of the Mississippi.
I love those Homer's! This was our post Sunday dinner activity. Thanks for the invite!