Shortly after marrying my wonderful wife, I told her that I would rather starve than “have a belly”. In my relatively young adult mind, I believed that I could always keep doing the things I was doing and not gain weight. How naive I was! We weren’t married long before…

I love baked salmon. I fell in love with it eating lovingly-prepared meals at my paternal grandmother’s table. Unfortunately, she took her secret recipe to the grave with her. One thing I do know: no part of the recipe was hurried. …

It’s rare that I get more than 6 hours of sleep in a night. 5 is a solid average. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to stop setting an alarm. I figured I would wake up when my body was done sleeping. What surprised and frustrated me: I started…

Imagine you’ve just been to the doctor for a routine checkup. But your doctor found something. A few weeks later, tests confirm that you have a stage II non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Treatments begin in earnest: chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and radiation. You lose your appetite. Weight loss becomes a problem not a desired…

It was 5:00 am when we hit the trailhead of one of the most challenging day-hikes the Wasatch mountains have to offer. For August, it was a cool morning, but I knew that would change as soon as the sun crept over the jagged peak above us. We hiked quickly…

The first time I drove on a roundabout was in Guatemala City, Guatemala nearly 25 years ago. I had never seen one, much less driven on one. The busiest street in the entire country converged on a five-lane behemoth with a giant statue at the center. I entered the roundabout…

When I was six years old, I knew I would be a veterinarian when I grew up. By the time I was nine, I had expanded my love of animals and knew I’d be a zoologist. By fourteen, I was certain I wanted to be a geneticist (thank you Jurassic…

When I was nine or ten, this old lawnmower we had stopped working. The engine seized one day while my dad was out mowing the lawn. My younger brother — who was only eighteen months my junior — and I decided it would be a good idea to take apart…

Stay with me. This one’s going to be even a little bit nerdier than my usual posts. I can’t help but marvel at nature. Think about it for a moment. …