Maine oh maine oh maine

Plane tickets to Maine are not cheap. If you can find one for $300.00 you better buy it fast because the price will only go up from there. Consequently, I usually only make it home about twice a year. Christmas and once in the summer. Every time I go home I recognize more and more the differences between Maine and the wild west. Highways, Maine highways would not be called so by any native Utahn. They are usually no more than two lanes and the left lane is reserved for passing, not just another lane so you can drive unhindered at any particular speed like Utah's fast lanes. Not that there's even enough traffic on these highways to ever fill both lanes. My favorite is the two walls of trees lining the sides of the road. Especially if you drive north any distance. On this last trip I happened to be on the highway when I was reminded what a downpour was. There is enough rain in Utah for life to be sustained and incredible lightning storms that can be viewed from a distance, but the rain never REALLY comes down. Growing up in Maine I never saw an actual lightning bolt until I came out to Utah. Lightning storms for us were just loud booms and flashes of light that filled the whole sky above very close treeline, but as for rain we did not lack. With wipers at full speed you can not travel above 40 mph and still be able to see anything in front of your vehicle, and the noise is uncanny.
Now I am told that Utah's lakes are awesome and great for water sports, but I have yet to come across the time and means to travel to the nearest one with the right facilities to do so. I have seen Utah lake but I don't recall seeing many boats or skiers on it. My house in Maine on the other hand is anywhere from a 2 minute walk to a 20 minute drive from about six or seven beautiful lakes filled with fish and loons and surrounded by forest. Most of my time home was spent either catching up on doctor appointments or on a lake. I spent my few days sailing, tubing, canoeing, kayaking, swimming, motorboating, fishing and sitting on the beach, on Mill Pond, Piper Pond, Forest Lake, Little Sebago Lake, Saco River and even the Atlantic Ocean, and that's what I call a wicked good vacation.
Other than that there were the traditional essential activities such as eating ridiculous amounts of lobster for 3.99 a lb. and eating even ridiculouser amounts of China Taste's sesame chicken and beef teriyaki. Both of which I will crave continuously until I return to the blessed Vacationland!

That close... that close.

I have been a victim of robbery many times: a bike, a bike pump, money from my checking account, a home-made blanket from one of my mission moms, dvd's, etc. Now I think I'm pretty secure with my possessions, I just have had some sour luck. It seems, that for a moment at least, my luck has turned around. I am currently carless due to the death of good ol' Lacy the 94 Legacy. I have been browsing cars on Craigslist for a while just to keep an eye out for when I have some money saved up for anything that'll last me the rest of college. I was "lucky" enough to happen upon a really nice car for dirt cheap. 8,000 below blue book price kind of dirt cheap. It was this beautiful '05 Nissan Altima going for 2,890 so I jumped on it as fast as I could. I figured that if I just took out a loan and grabbed the car I could drive it for a couple of years then make bank on it. Everyone told me it was too good to be true but the seller, under the alias Peter Tocco, was very convincing. He told me I could have the car for three days before paying and that it was in perfect condition. Not only that but HE wanted to complete the transaction through ebay just to be safe. I was sold. As we e-mailed back and forth to get the details down he began to start sounding impatient. He even e-mailed me an authentic looking e-mail supposedly from ebay. Complete with links to ebay and lengthy buy protection agreements. I was totally bought on this until I read the e-mail in detail. This e-mail, which had no connections to "Peter Tocco's" ebay username nor my ebay page, instructed me to take the payment, in cash, to a moneygram office at a local grocery store and to have it sent to an "ebay agent's" address in Las Vegas. I was also instructed not to discuss these payment instructions with the seller, ebay, or anyone else and not to send a money order, but cash only. I had planned on checking out the validity of the ebay agreement but now I knew I had to do it before I made anymore headway on getting a loan. The ebay e-mail told me to pay before getting the car and that the "agent" would hold the money until I okayed the transfer to the seller. As I went to the ebay purchase protection link on the ebay website to input the "case ID" I had been given to identify the transaction, the first link that I noticed was a warning against an increased method of ebay fraud. Still convinced it was real due to my desire for it to be real regardless of my suspicions, I clicked on the link. As I read the full length warning, I read an exact description of the transaction I was involved in. They even named Craigslist and MoneyGram being used with these fake ebay e-mail car posts, and warned that e-bay never completes transactions this way. I am currently continuing to converse with "Peter Tocco" through e-mail playing dumb, pretending to be only slightly suspicious and very ignorant and it is very entertaining as he is getting less and less patient. So, thanks to ebay, and several prayers asking for help to know if I should buy the car or not, I have been saved from losing $2,890 to some dang scammers sitting in their basement creating fake websites, carpostings, and masked e-mail addresses!

The First.... sort of.

It's done, it's up. I feel a little gay doing this just as I expected but I'm hoping my prediction is correct that there are only a select few who will actually read this. Let's see I'll make this quick. Current life status: I think the highlight is that I am dating someone, her name is Ashlee Harward and she's pretty freakin' awesome, plus she's wicked hot!
We've been dating for 3 months now and no we're not engaged yet (ya we're really pushing the envelope here in provo) but things are going really well. I've been out of school for a while working for Tri-Connections with adults with mental disabilities which is some of the most fun I've ever had as well as good ol' APX, the greatest call center job I've ever had. Hopefully I'll soon be out of that and back to working at the good ol' HBLL. I've been in school for three years so far and the plan right now is to graduate in three years in mechanical engineering and get a sweet job somewhere with snow, lakes and trees. Right now I'm carless but my two-wheeler gets me around pretty well and I plan on purchasing a new ride pretty soon, which I'm sure I'll blog about... unless I completely forget about this after this blog. Well, that's all I've got for now I'm sure I'll think of something random to post later. Peace!

My Life Story

My name is Michael DiFiore. I go by Mike. I was born on November 8th of 1985 in Portland Maine to my mother Gail and my father Al. They had recently moved from Portland to a nearby small town called Windham. When I arrived I joined my parents as well as my older sister Mary, who is the eldest, my older brother Tony, and two cats which I have no recollection of. Three years later I glad to have a new younger brother, Nick. When I was four I began attending Joy School which was an unofficial preschool run by women in the ward. They would take turns having it at their homes and running it. Then came my sweet little sister, Laura. She is still the youngest and has been the center of attention since that very day she arrived. Next was Kindergarten. In our school system, Kindergarten through third grade are in one building. That was an experience of pure bliss where I lived for recess, sledding, legos, cartoons and summer vacation. Fourth grade was in a building much closer to my house that looked like it was a few hundred years old. Fifth grade was in a newer building only a hundred feet away and was about the same experience. Sixth through eighth grade was middle school. I had four or five friends and I thought that was plenty. I was picked on quite a bit because of who my friends were but I refused to let it bother me. High school was an adventure. Now with a bit more than four friends, all in different clics, I began to think about my future. I actually had to make a solid effort to stay on the honor roll and began to get myself involved in various clubs and sports. I had always planned on serving a mission but had a little bit of time to kill after graduation. I applied only to BYU and figured that if it didn't work out I could apply elsewhere after my mission. I was incredibly blessed by being admitted and set off on my own to BYU for a year. I enjoyed this new freedom more than expected. I enjoyed it so much I began to slack in most of my classes. The time to leave for my mission couldn't have come at a better time. I was blessed to serve a mission in the San Fernando, California Mission for two amazing years. To explain all of that would take another longer paper. I'll just say I learned grew infinitely more than I would've at home or even at BYU and I am extremely grateful for it.