Pool Drains = Evil

Although I have the Star Tribune website bookmarked, I rarely look at the newspaper from my hometown. Today I decided to click on it, and I became very sad.

Abigail Taylor died.


Sad.

Last summer at the Minneapolis Golf Club in St. Louis Park, the suction from a wading pool drain literally ripped out six-year-old Abigail's insides. She had transplant surgery at a Nebraska hospital to get a new small bowel, liver, and pancreas. She had one setback after another, undergoing 16 more surgeries. SIXTEEN!

Then at the beginning of this month she began chemotherapy for a rare cancer associated with transplants called posttransplant lymphoprolipherative disease, or PTLD. It affects some blood cells.

Abigail's parents are in the midst of suing the golf club and the company that manufactured the pool drain.

After Scott and Katey Taylor campaigned for new legislation regulating safety of pool drains, a new law was passed in Congress banning all manufacture, distribution, and sale of drain covers that don't meet anti-entrapment standards. The bill is named after Virginia Graeme Baker, a seven-year-old who was pinned to the bottom of a pool and drowned in 2002.

I vaguely remember reading about a story similar to this in some medical oddities book a few years ago. It was weird and sort of gross and amusing then. It's not so much anymore.

Who Wants to Date a Celebrity?

Oh man.

On Monday I took my friends to West Hollywood because they are visiting from Minnesota and they wanted to see Hollywood. Ugh. Hollywood is such a pain in the ass. But that's a different story.

So we decided to see a movie at Grauman's Chinese Theater. It's very beautiful I've never actually seen a movie there before (probably because it costs $11.25). We saw "10,000 BC." It was...pretty bad. As a history major I was minorly disgusted. But that is also a different story.

The point is...the leading man in the film, Steven Strait, is HOT.


HOLY CRAP. And look at those LOCKS!

Naturally, I immediately looked him up on IMDB when I got home. He's 21! He's my age!! He turns 22 next week! Even better! I am used to Googling hot actors and finding out that they are 30-something and being crushed. (See Adrien Grenier, James McAvoy, James Franco.) Or worse, hotties that are YOUNGER! (See Daniel Radcliffe, Corbin Bleu.)

So I was very happy to discover this hott-ay Steven Strait. No word on his 'ship status.

Lately I've been kind of depressed about Zac Efron because he's dating that stupid chick from High School Musical Vanessa Hudgens. He's 20 and he's beautiful. I may have an unnatural crush on him. Every time I watch High School Musical (which isn't that often....but probably more than a 21-year-old should...) I just want to date him so badly!!! So I'm working on that, but we'll see...

Living in LA you'd think I'd have a really easy time dating a celeb. What's wrong with this city!!??!?!

Maybe if the guys at my school weren't such idiots my life would be easier. Alas. I'll just search for Steven Strait. And Zac Efron too.

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The Grand Canyon is Very Grand

Hello friends, I haven't written in a while because I've been on vacay. Spring vacay, to be precise. I went to beautiful Scottsdale, Arizona with my roomie to visit our friend. It was awesome! Mostly. I'd never been to Arizona except driving through on the way to Mexico. Arizona's weird. But that's a different subject.

Anyway, so my roomie and I decided to go to the Grand Canyon before we drove home.

It was Grand.
We went to the South Rim. It takes something like 5 hours to drive to the North Rim from the South Rim.

It was very cold at the Grand Canyon. There was snow on the ground!! I didn't realize that the elevation is about 7000 feet. I was wearing shorts (and a sweater!) and many people we passed commented on how crazy my roomie and I were. In reality, we were just tougher than them.

We saw mules.Mules are bigger than I thought! They also aren't as ugly as I thought. We didn't ride the mules because we are tough and we didn't need no stinkin' mule to take us down the canyon.

We hiked the Kaibab Trail. We didn't go all the way down, because that is really far. The bad thing about canyon hiking is that, as the signs say, "What goes down must come up!" But it wasn't so bad. Except it was sort of icy and there was snow. I slipped a few times. Liz laughed at me.I truly wasn't expecting the Grand Canyon to be as Grand as it actually is. It's very surreal. I am really glad that we went there, even though it was three hours out of our way and it took us 8 hours to drive home. It was totally worth it!! I highly recommend visiting the Grand Canyon!! I feel as though my life is just a little bit more complete because I went there. Ah. That feels nice.

Bye!