So excited for our Cruise to Mexico!

This photo of Las Caletas is courtesy of TripAdvisor

This place is definitely on our list of places to Go!

Ads For Conan O'Brien!

Behind the Scenes with Yvonne

I have filmed with the kinghorns before and it is always fun, they are just a great family. however filming the interview with yvonne was painful. I know that sounds like a terrible thing to say, but I kid you not I was bitten by at least 20 mosquitos. you can see the little irrigation ditch that we were filming by in Surviving Cancer: Yvonne Kinghorn. and it was just not a good idea, it looked great, but the risk was not worth the end result! that night i could even sleep because I got bit so many times! it was just terrible! anyways i hope you all enjoy my film, unfortunately it didn't turn out quite as nicely as i was hoping it would, but i still am learning Premiere Pro so hopefully i will hone in my skills in the next video i do. the bigest problem that i ran into was simply the sound. you can tell in the video that i am trying to get rid of the hiss and hum, but at the price of her sounding like she is talking over the radio. so if you have any comments or suggestions on how to fix that, just leave me a comment below.

Thanks Dav,

http://www.riverlarsonfilm.com/

Magic moments

 I recorded this on a point and shoot and without a tripod... so needless to say the quality isn't the best... BUT the audio is a sond by two friends of mine, Tandy and Emma. they are really talented and i loved working with them. we recorded this song in two takes in the basement of the Spori building. they are just amazing like that.

Juggling workshop

This i did really quickly one day for Byui's juggling workshop. Mattlock, the manager of the workshop can do some really amazing stuff. He is the one in the orange shirt in here.

Anyways, the workshop is thursdays at 7:00 in the I center.

Brit Conley: The Struggle to Live

13^th June 2012

The Struggle to Live

Life isn’t always normal after adversity, especially for those who have experienced cancer. Nausea, loss of hair, fatigue, and infertility are all things that cancer patients have to deal with. Cancer victims, however, are anxious not to add “loss of a life well lived” to the list. Like many, Brit Conley has survived in more ways than one. She is a survivor of the soul, not just the body.
Brit loves to swim, and were she lives in Hawaii is the perfect place to do it. However, since she found out she had Melanoma skin cancer, she has been extra careful to lather her self with extra strength sunscreen before she dives in. There is something about the salty water of the ocean that can always relax her; “I love working out and then jumping in the ocean and just swimming, swimming forever…I would rather be no where else in the world.”
Although swimming is the best way to forget your troubles, it is always difficult to forget your past. Looking at the white beaches in the background, behind the sheets of curling water, she remembers her hospital beds that shared the same color, and cleanness. She was only 20 when she found out she had Melanoma skin cancer, and by the time she was 21, she had plenty of scars to tell her story.


She is in remission now, and it is a lot easier to relax. Sometimes she takes hikes through the hidden trails in the tropical forests of Honolulu. Other times she makes her self a dish called an “Açai-bowl”, a mix of local fruits and açai berries. But even every relaxing day is preceded a simple routine, foreign to many. In the morning, after she wakes up, she eats, brushes her teeth takes a shower. She then proceeds to check her self in the mirror for any new or irregular moles, because it only takes one malignant mole to kill you. Needless to say, sometimes waking up can be a scary thing.


She has found many dangerous moles, and has had seven separate surgeries to remove them. She may not have had skin cancer if it wasn’t for her frequent use of tanning beds. To many, tanning is the new American pastime. It was Brit’s goal, and those who she hung out with, to be as tan, blond and beautiful as possible. She says, “It felt good to tan. You immerge from the florescent beds feeling fresher and more beautiful then ever.” She worked at one, and there they were encouraged to tan as often as possible. She worked at another, same story. By the time she reached college, the habit was formed.
One day she sat down in her car on top of one of her moles she had formed from tanning, and it hurt. “It felt like a bug had bit me, and I though it had” she says “but later I realize that it had just been this tiny little mole I had”


After postponing it for a few months, she finally had her mole checked. Brit told her dermatologist casually that she had a mole that just kept bothering her. As she continued to explain this to the dermatologist, the doctor’s eyes widened like an owl. “We must remove it immediately!” The doctor examined it and removed it for testing. The results would come in three days. Brit didn’t expect anything to be wrong, and continued life as normal. 




Sitting on the beach, in her bathing suit, you can easily see her scars. Many are just the size of a pea, with the texture of Swiss cheese. Two scars, unfortunately, are much more prevalent. They are discolored lines of raised scar tissue peer out seven inches from the inside of her groin. Still, Brit will sit there happily; to her scars are a badge of courage. The fight with cancer is over, but her fight isn’t quite yet. While many of her friends know what she has been through, most still don’t. One time a friend of hers, a boy, asked about the scars dotting her skin: “What did you get attacked by a dog?” he asked with a sneer. Later she recounted, “A lump formed in the back of my throat, and suddenly I was on the verge of tears.” She tried to laugh it off, but the laugh just wouldn’t come out. Her scars were torn again open by his mocking and degrading tone. “How could he be so tactless!”


It brought back memories of the night she found out she had the deadly disease. It was three days after her dermatologist had checked her; and she had completely forgot about the test. As she walked into her house after a low-key day at work, “immediately something felt off.” She proceeded to the kitchen to make herself a sandwich for dinner. Her mom turned the corner into the kitchen and when Brit looked up and caught her mom’s glance, her mom left the room crying. 
Perplexed, Brit continued to prepare the sandwich. As her dad walked in, she asked, “What’s going on?” He responded somberly, “We need to talk to you—take your time, just when you are finished.” Something about the way her dad said it made her loose her appetite altogether. 


She walked into the den, where her crying mother and father were sitting. Although she was guilty of nothing, she felt like she had done something wrong. Immediately she found herself combing her mind for all the things that she could possibly be in trouble for, and what her excuses would be. The real reason, however, no person could prepare for, or foresee.
“What is it? This isn’t funny!” she said with a raised voice. 
“Brit, they found cancer in your mole, and it is stage 3 melanoma”
“I am going to die” were the first words she thought to her self. Melanoma is one of the most dangerous cancers; it claims an average of 9000 people a year. Although, when Melanoma is caught in its early stages, it is very curable with a 91% survival rate. However the further the cancer has developed the less likely you are to survive, and at stage 3 it is almost a 60/40 chance.


Brit walked out of that room broken; her steps were heavier and slower. “What is going to happen? Am I going to make it? How am I going to continue school?”


To be careful every suspicious mole was removed, and she began hating looking at her self in the mirror. There was a 4-inch diameter of skin around the original mole was removed, and now sitting was difficult. Cancer was found in a few other places, including her lymph nodes, and those too were removed. They left the scars on the insides of her legs seven inches long, discolored pink, and easy to see. Being the same girl was forever impossible. For many people cancer in the lymph nodes means almost certain death, because the cancer quickly spreads from the lymph nodes to other organs: the kidney, the liver, the breasts, and the colon. But with time, tears, and living life as it came, Brit beat the odds. 


Checking herself for malignant moles every morning has become a must in her routine, and she will have to do it for the rest of her life, being ever vigilant. But that isn’t the only habit she has adopted, and it is not the only reason she has survived. “Every morning that I wake up, I tell my self that today is going to be a good day, no matter what I know the day will bring.” She says it has become an adage she lives by, “Happiness does not depend upon your luck, or what happens to you. If you want to be happy you can, no matter what life has thrown your way…today is life.”


“Today is life,” she says “that is what my aunt told me once, you have to find ways to enjoy each precious moment, no matter what your circumstances are.” Today is life. Cancer can take away lives, it can take away kidneys, it can even take away beauty, but can it really take away a life enjoyed?  Whether it is eating an “açai bowl,” swimming in the ocean, or hiking through the forest, Brit can be found with content eyes, because today Brit is alive.

My bike broke down!!

My little Diamno 150cc scooter topped working the other day, and then i tore the carburetor apart just to find out that it wasn't the carb at all! i finally got it running after cleaning the spark pug off!!!