Unlikely Combinations

At work today my coworkers told me that eating chili and cinnamon rolls was a common Nebraska thing. I gagged and then laughed because obviously they were playing the "let's gross out the temp" game. Except they weren't. Apparently cinnamon rolls and chili for lunch or dinner is a common and much beloved Nebraska thing. I don't think I will ever try to find out why. This is even after I ate the horseradish infused pickles, so I am no food sissy.

Also I am eating some sea salt speckled chocolate. It is much more delicious than I could have even imagined. It has chunks of rock salt mixed into %47 dark chocolate. I also bought some Ghirardelli but it isn't as good. This is all a part of my advent partying.

I can finally spend 15 minutes a day wasting time differently now

A nice list because it is a great medium to fill up space.
1) I ate some fruit gushers at work and had mixed feelings:
(a) They were delicious
(b) I was expecting a bit of a liquid explosion after reading the box for the past 3 days. It was more of a trickle, albeit a tasty one. A delicious puny dribble.

2) I like L.L.Bean catalogs for the future home decorating ideas. I am such a sap- I totally want to walk around in lambswool loafers and sip gourmet hot chocolate out of novelty mugs while I play deluxe L.L.Bean edition Scrabble. I also like reading knive catalogs and planning all the epic life threatening survival treks I might have to make across Canada.

3) Once in priesthood quorum I raised my hand to comment just to hear the teacher call on three guys named Chris in a row. I thought I was clever but I don't think anyone else noticed because no one offered me a high-five or a thumbs up.

4) I like art museums a lot and I fulfilled a life goal this summer of going to the Chicago Art Institute. I spent 8 hours inside and saw everything except for the dollhouse furniture and the miniature rooms. I was pretty sad about that. I wasted time on the performance art gallery when I could have seen miniature throne rooms from Buckingham palace and miniature great halls from Hogwarts. But it was a nice time and my legs were tired.
Also, the museum does not let you take ANY food or drink inside, even if it is an apple and a coke inside your backpack that you only want to check in and not even have access to for the rest of the day. I don't think my coke (which I was given for free on the street for some promotional thing) was going to go run upstairs and spray itself on the video of a cleaver hacking beef steaks, but the people told me I had to go outside and drink it. So I chugged it out of spite and burned my nose. And then I ate three apples and a granola bar.
But I think that would be my dream day- walk around art museums with apple juice and sandwiches. Or ride one of those Wal-Mart scooters with a shrimp cocktail. And it would be an even better day if the scooter had a tennis ball launcher from American Gladiator that I could shoot modern euro trash with. best. day. ever.

The secret athletic life of Anna

So, Chris guest-posted on my blog last night, so tonight I am guest-blogging on his.

However, I have noticed that there are two different types of posts I like to make. There is the regular post and then there is the bragging post. I like to call it the Bragalog. This post will be a Bragalog. Enjoy.

I thought I would write about my past life as an Ultimate Frisbee star. I don't think many people realize how hard-core and good I really was.

I started playing Ultimate Frisbee with some kids in church when I was in high school. I wasn't super good, but I was really fast and I could catch really well. After my first year at BYU I came back home for the summer and started playing every other day with some college kids I randomly met. I got a lot better. A lot. They started calling me Hero because I could catch anything. By the way, as far as nicknames go, Hero is not too shabby.

It wasn't till I graduated from BYU that I really became addicted. That's when I developed my awesome forehand (well it used to be awesome). I had a pretty good hammer throw as well and could sometimes be used as the teams handler (that was just some Ultimate lingo to impress you).

Looking back on it now I realize I spent more time playing ultimate than I would have spent at a part time job. From August 2003 to January 2004 I tried to play every weekday evening and every Saturday morning. It got a little tricky in the winter time because it gets dark early, but some other die hard players found a field that mysteriously turned on their stadium lights every night. We would all be out there in our sweats and gloves shivering and trying to play Ultimate. We played in the snow and rain and ice. I remember staying up all night once playing Ultimate just so we could play ultimate while the sun was rising.

Saturday mornings were always the best because, when I wasn't playing in the D.C. League, I was on the DC mall playing pick up Ultimate with all the rich, young yuppies. These were pick up games, but they were really intense. These are the games that finally convinced me I needed to buy cleats. I was slipping around too much. Man, I have to say, cool people play Ultimate. Like me. There is a whole culture built around that sport. I made a lot of friends over that time period. ost of them were from my DC Ultimate League team. Yawn. That's right, I was on a second tier league team. Our team name was Raze and we had our own jerseys. Cool, no? I am pretty sure we came in second.

Anyway, this is just to prove to you that even though you thought I was awesome because of my acute mental abilities, you now know that I used to be an Athletic superstar.

Also, I was on the crew team in high school. But we weren't good. I rowed starboard.

Can November please end? Also, DANGER!

The danger was to spice up the title a bit. There is nothing dangerous about this post. I will be discussing how hard it is to blog everyday, quilting, quilting stores, and pie.

1) I am pretty sure I have told all of my good stories. If I think of any that I have not ever posted before I might add them, but frankly I think up what I am going to write about 10 minutes before I start typing. Not a whole lot of thought put into this, you guys. It is hard to be lazy and interesting. I am pretty sure there is no life lesson I can learn from this though.

2) We went to the Quilt Museum on campus. UNL offers the only Masters in Quilting in the world. Yeah! There were some cool things and it looked hard. And soft.

3) Anna and I went to Joanns and she bought quilt stuff and I got two canvases for a new hobby you guys! I have some acrylics. I figure painting can't be all that hard, so I will throw together a quick masterpiece and make a few bucks. Maybe I can plagiarize and live an awesome life of trickery.
It is likely that I will end up like that Israeli intelligence guy that sold information to the Soviets over 7 years back during the cold war for $31,000. He had a lot of debt from bad business ventures. I am thinking that a life of trickery is more like a life of ramen and kool-aid.

4) We had seven pies for thanksgiving and still have about 3 left if you add up all the remnants. I will live like a 6 year old king for about 2 days until my body starts rejecting sugar and I get beriberi. And then I'll have to eat lots of kale and bok choi.

Hey, thanks for getting to the end. I think I'll watch a show or something now. Lisa is still here so maybe we'll play a game.

one time i threw up on a nice lady

I was a missionary and for thanksgiving 2004 I was invited over to a nice Ukrainian sister's house. She had made my companion and myself a great thanksgiving meal- i am sure it cost her a lot of money and she went to the trouble to make mashed potatoes, corn, and turkey. She told us to eat it all because she didn't even really care for American food. What a nice lady, right?
Well this young American certainly thought so. I ate and ate and we talked and had a great time. I was so impressed at how much i could eat. I should mention that before this dinner appointment I had eaten about a pound and a half of Phillipino ginger beef and rice because I didn't know we would be getting fed. Then we found out that we were going to get fed a LOT. In my defense we didn't get many dinner appointments and we tended to binge when we got the opportunity- stocking up for the winter and all that.
In any case, my companion and I (who just had a baby girl yesterday, by the way) had proven ourselves real heroes and had finished this great meal. We chatted for a little longer afterward and were getting ready to leave. My companion was in the middle of the prayer when I felt my guts give up. I knew I was not going to be able to keep all of this food inside of me. I abandoned his conversation with the Creator and started saying my own little prayer that I would at least be able to hold everything in until I got outside. Then I started thinking about the closest dumpsters and whether she would hear me retching. I was sure I had a plan that would work and I felt my gag reflexes ease up a little.
I was in the clear. I amen-ed heartily at the end of the prayer and held out my hand to thank the Sister quickly so we could get outside fast. As rocked forward to get momentum to get off the futon, I pinched my stomach and forcibly ejected 4/5 of my evenings' meals on her floor, her bed, her open bible, her sweater, her hair, and her. It was a steady stream that shot over 6 feet. I held up my hand in front of my mouth and deflected about half a quart onto my chest and filled up my shirt pocket. Everyone sat in stunned silence for at least 7 seconds before she leapt up and got a tupperware and I started moaning through my full cheeks and my companion started convulsing in laughter.
It was a humiliating 15 minute clean up and a long cold ride home. I am sure i was not a great posterchild for the Church that night. I looked like a drunken tourist. I ended up getting her a new bible and some candles and a rug from IKEA, but I don't think there is much I can do about barfing on her head.
And that was the most humiliating thanksgiving ever.

i guess that really WAS me...

i am so embarrassed. but I don't want to post and this is an easy ticket out.
lollipops...

A real post from Chris

Hello. This is Chris. Not an impostor. I had such a great Thanksgiving with Anna. I love Anna sooooooo much. She is such a cootie patootie. Smoochy smoochy. Sure food was good, and chilling with the family was okay, but I could barely concentrate because of the hottie with the sweet body I married. Zowie! If only I was as smart and cute and funny (especially funny) as her. Also, she was an awesome liar when we played Mafia. Who would think that someone with such a sensitive and profound spirit would be such a mastermind at games as well? What a lucky fellow I am. I hereby promise to do the dishes forever. Also, I will clean up the bathroom every other day.

Shanksgiving- a murderous tale of horror

Just kidding. I was just polishing up my blog titles as requested in yesterday's comments. Truth be told, I am not even a fan of murderous tales of horror. My freshman year in college I went on a horror flick kick and tried to get spooked by scary movies, but the harder you try to get scared, the more difficult it gets. Ultra violence and bloody gore are not quality substitutes for chills and thrills. The scariest parts of movies are the little bits like facial expressions or the dawning of a terrifying concept. A good film director will work in subtlety. But like I said, it is hard to get scared when you really want to be scared. It always happens when you want things to be nice and ok, when you like the characters and want things to end up nice or worse, when you are watching a scary movie but are not in the mood to be afraid- THEN everything is really scary. It is like trying not to laugh when it is a really inappropriate time to laugh, like when a county commissioner and two angry ombudsmen were in my office and I was reading Dinosaur Comics and trying really hard not to laugh out loud. But of course I was turning red and shaking and making snortlets while these guys were 4 feet away from me.

Anyways, I don't even like scary movies anymore. Which is why I was getting freaked out today when I was watching "My Teacher Ate My Homework." I got it from the kids section at the library and it looked funny, and even though it is like those Goosebumps shows that used to be on TV, it is kind of creepy. It has an evil doll. Evil doll stories are the worst because they are tiny and you can never really trust them to NOT wake up and scare you. But I have a while to go before I finish the movie so maybe it will be less scary later on.

I suppose this really did turn out to be a Shanksgiving blog post. Happy thanksgiving. Hope your pies are less delicious than my pies. Especially my banana cream pie.

24

I checked my email and was rescued by the news flash that Google puts out on my account because I had nothing to write about. But now I do. SCIENCE you guys!

Apparently there is a Belgian man who has been in a coma for 23 years but has been conscious the whole time. That would stink. There would be nothing to do but hang out and listen and think. I guess you would probably learn a lot about the people around you, but its not like you could do anything with it. So the way that they found out that he has been conscious is that a helper held his finger and helped him type on a keypad. I cannot imagine how this works, considering he is still in a coma, but apparently the therapist can feel him guiding his finger with gentle pressure. Also his physician said that brain scans show that he is not in a complete vegetative state, but is conscious. If I am ever in a conscious coma or whatever this guy is in, I would like to request lots of Sherlock Holmes audio books. Also, lots of biographies and Encyclopedia Browns.
Also, a satellite meant to detect gamma rays has found 17 occurrences of high-energy gamma rays on earth, all coinciding with lighting strikes detected by a lightning tracker. This is where it gets cool: in one of these gamma ray emitting lightning strikes, there were a bunch of positrons- antimatter! So cool you guys. Antimatter annihilates matter. It is the opposite of an electron.
The energy of lighting can cause electrons to react with the atmosphere like a particle accelerator (which by the way, has also been in the news, CERN had its big atom smash a few days ago) and create lightning and the gamma radiation. This could be big stuff. Antimatter is brutal and would probably be harnessed as a weapon- making it ultra destructive. But maybe it won't be used as a weapon and just make for cool new magic tricks?

23

Post 23:

1) I saw an advertisement for Bacon Chili Cheeseburger Pizza. I have no idea what that would look or taste like. Also, I am proud of that.

2) I returned Ray Charles' Genius Loves Company (naturally it is what I checked out from the library) but I forgot to put the CD back in the case. I have a $19 fine. But it's ok because I just have to give it back.
Look it's been 23 days. I am straining at gnats here to find interesting tidbits.

3) Ha ha. A guy called today asking if his friend has a ticket. I said "I don't know. Maybe she does." He says she blacked out because she was so drunk but she thinks she remembers getting a ticket from a police officer. I laughed and said that maybe she should call the police. It is a funny thought.
One woman called once to ask if she got a ticket last week. I told her I didn't know. She said "Well, I know I did, but I threw it away." Ha!

4) A young lady called last week to see if her cousin and uncle were in our jail. I looked up the names and told her they weren't. She said "Oh. Ok, well, do you know the numbers for any other jails in Nebraska?"
I told her that each county has a jail and there are 93 counties in Nebraska. She asked if I knew them. I was speechless for a little bit and then told her that maybe she should check wikipedia or google. She thought that was a good idea and thanked me.

5) I have never liked football or basketball. It is my dark secret. I have never watched a full basketball or football game. I watched a full professional baseball game once, but only to say I had. It was excruciating. Being in Nebraska, I am presumed a Husker fan until proven otherwise, so I have had to fake a lot of football knowledge:
Person: "So did you see that game?"
Me: "Hoo-boy... really something, huh?"
Person: "What did you think of the defense?"
Me (not knowing whose defense person was referring to, much less whether it was good or bad): "Man, oh man. Pretty crazy stuff..."
Person: "Yeah, we really got crushed this time, but there's no way Pelini is going to let them rest before the next game. He doesn't let our boys get off easy after a performance like that...blah blah double yardage down and 10-4 good buddy field goal..."

Then I use the comments from Person to use when deflecting Person2's small talk:
Person2: "Some game, huh?"
Me: "Oh man, no way is Pelini going to let the defense rest after a performance like that, huh?"
Person2: "I accept you as a fellow fan."

But it is all a ruse to avoid explaining that I like athletics and I even enjoy playing some (SOME) team sports sometimes but I just think they are so boring.

I went and watched a BYU football game once. I left during halftime and went back to my dorm and played Grand Theft Auto and ate a hotpocket. My day improved considerably. Even when I worked for BYU event staff and got to watch the games for free, I just got so bored. I would stomp my feet and do the "gooooooo Cougars" bit, but I was miserable.

Do you have to feign interest in something because it is easier than explaining the truth?

gypsy blog

anna asks me why I am so racist at the very beginning of my blog.
(1) I don't think that Gypsies are their own race.
(2) This blog is really about gypsies so I am not using it as an epithet.
Anna says this is not about gypsies and I am a liar and this should be called the liar blog. I am wondering why she is reading over my shoulder and not getting brownies and ice cream like she said she was going to do.
That's right Anna. leave...

So believe it or not, this really IS going to be a blog about Gypsies. I don't know anything about gypsies other than they are descendants of the Roma people and can be found all over the world. Why? Who knows? I'll bet there is a good story there somewhere.
On my mission some gypsies cursed an apartment used by elders. They killed a cat and threw it against the door from the street. After that, there were always lots of dead animals and electrical malfunctions with the apartment. Actually there had always been lots of problems, this was Athens after all. We had lots of problems with Gypsies breaking into the church and stealing water. We would catch families taking baths in the font. Some of the missionaries got upset, but frankly I was just glad someone was finally using it (ba-dum ching).
The gypsies had whole townships on outskirts of the city where they would occupy abandoned shells of buildings and park their Hummers and Escalades out in front of them. The insides of the homes were mostly boxes and woven rugs. They would gather in big groups and roast dogs over open fire-pits.

Fascinating, huh? And those are all the stories I have about gypsies. So that is why I am right and anna is wrong.

breaking and entering

Our car got towed yesterday and today I got a friend to drive me down to the impound lot to get carseats, blankets, a full pack of toilet paper (??), and a 40 pound bag of potting soil (??) out of the trunk. I had to get up at 7:30 (killer) and we got to the lot (on the other side of the city) when I realized I didn't bring the keys to the car.
Fortunately it is broken down and is going to be given to a Fire Department for extraction practice (a nice way to go in my opinion),so it didn't matter if it got messed up.
I grabbed the passenger side window and pried it out away from the car so I could unlock it. It was shockingly easy. It literally took me 5 seconds to break into my own car. It makes me wonder why I fretted about carrying keys around with me for the last 3.5 years. We got all the stuff out and I looked around to see if there was anything cool left. I took off the rearview mirror but then decided I had no use for it, so I put it back.
It was funny walking through the lot because the different purposes the cars were impounded were pretty easy to determine. The Hummer and the Volkswagen were DUIs. The saran wrapped cars were abandoned. The Suburban folded in half was from an accidents. The go cart was probably some kid that was driving on the road. I have no clue where the speedboat came from. I suppose the Platte River is a tributary of the Missouri which is a tributary of the Mississippi, so perhaps the smugglers wanted to find a direct avenue to peddle to the Great Plains.

That was my morning. Car jacking. I felt cool all day. We took Soapy to the Children's Museum because it was on the bus route to the library. She had fun but she was a little too old for the baby toys and not quite old enough for the rest of the museum. We'll give her a few months and she will have a blast. This museum has a big tunnel network built against a wall so the kids can pretend to be prarie dogs. It is really cool. There are two levels and walkways and the whole thing is covered in ground rubber (like school tracks are made of) so it looks like dirt mounds.

I also found a Poirot that I haven't seen yet. I thought I had seen them all. Anna and I are saving it for some special evening. A new Poirot is cause for celebration.

I recommend reading this five-part article about a NY Times journalist who was abducted by the Taliban and then escaped. He recently wrote about it and it is really interesting to read. I like it because it is not finely polished; it is sort of just an interesting story about what it would be like to get abducted and taken into the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of north west Pakistan (it would be bad).

A hard day

Today was rough. I recently heard that you can't have a silver lining without a cloud. I don't think that is true, but today had some good things and some bad things. I will structure my post accordingly.

Bad thing: Nothing at the jail caught on fire today
Good thing: Except for everyones' PANTS! There were so many LIARS! Stories to follow shortly...

Good thing: I wasn't close to anyone's nasty phlegm hacking
Bad thing: Listening to it over the phone still made me retch and recoil. Seriously, that was nasty. It was effectually 3 inches from my face.

Good thing: The persisting annoyance of our broken down car in the parking lot was finally resolved
Bad thing: It got towed and we have to pay money even to donate it to the towing agency

Good thing: The Sgt. that was coordinating my paperwork (who didn't really do a great job of following deadlines, etc.) handed it off to another Sgt. that has officer application experience
Bad thing: The deadline for the packet is on Wednesday and the recruiters have done nothing yet. We might be in limbo here in Nebraska for a looong time
Awesome thing: The jail offered me another temp position if I can commit to being available through the first week of March. They will have me doing accounting work. I will count wads of cash every morning and add and subtract. Three things I am really good at. That's awesome.

Man though, jail dudes lie like sleeping dawgz. I often get people calling up asking whether something their neighbor/baby daddy/brother/cousin told them is true. A smattering follows:
- You can revoke someone's bond after you give them the bond money and they are out, right? (note: this would mean that anyone could determine whether a former inmate would have to go to jail. That is dumb and unconstitutional at the same time.)
- My friend told me that he tried to turn himself in on a warrant but the jail was too full to take him so they said he doesn't have to go. Is that true? (note: no)
- My daughter told me that she is in jail for two weeks and she needs some money on her books but she told me to mail cash at a house on 27th street. I need that address. (note: the daughter never came to jail. pretty rotten way to get money from your mom)
- A lawyer stopped at the front desk to ask about the $1000 that an inmate apparently never got back when he left our custody. The inmate was adamant that his $1000 never got to him, so he sent his lawyer to the jail a week and a half later to pick it up from me at the front desk. (note: I totally had that $1000 but I am part of the government conspiracy to make sure that he can't-among other things- get the 2 for $1 canned chili at Super Saver)

There are two common words in the english language that end in "-shion". If you can figure them out, you will be tied with me. If you cannot, I win. I you get them faster than I got them, you have no way of proving it so by default I win but we can say we tied.

In the 1950's the breed of banana known to the world was the Gros Michel. A disease that spread from Panama killed every Gros Michel in the world. Luckily, a hearty strain known as the Cavendish was found and met the world's banana demand. the Gros Michel was creamier and had a stronger flavor. It was also a bit rounder and thicker. The Cavendish is being affected by disease now as well, but no one has been able to find a strain of banana that is able to produce plentiful, seedless fruit that will last. Banana research is costly and rare. The US has fought wars over bananas. We owe the invention of refrigeration to the banana. At the Chicago World's Fair the banana was sold to incredulous purchasers, but it was sliced and sold wrapped in tin foil so as not to embarrass the public. I don't remember anything else. Consider this as thorough a book review as you will likely ever get.
But the book is called "Banana: The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World". The author is Dan Koeppel. He also wrote "To See Every Bird on Earth" which is about his father's goal to document a viewing of every bird. I can't seem to find a copy. That is a lie. I found one in a Chicago Barnes and Noble basement once. But I haven't found it in a library. I suppose I could check interlibrary loan, but then it isn't as easy as just checking it out.

Speaking of which, I'll have to share the stories of my Jacob Marley guilt chains that have hung around my neck for years. I have a few long-term commitments that I have been dragging out for years and have never gotten around to.

Officially out of ideas

I have no clue what to write about. I have told my entire life story now. Feel free to essentially BE me by rereading the last 18 posts. Don't forget to give yourself a bad haircut (somehow possible even though you used a #1 clipper attachment over you whole head) and spill aftershave on your 2 sizes too small blue shirt that you still wear because it makes you look like you have muscles.
I had to take care of Soapy on my own tonight because Anna disappeared for a few hours to go who knows where. I ate some pulled pork and spinach and then tossed the kid in the tub. Then I shaved but I went against the grain under my chin and it burned real bad. I think I need to change the blade but I am so cheap. I even got all these razors for free and I am too cheap to use a fresh blade. I am too cheap to live.
Anyways I had to use lots of aftershave because otherwise my neck will burn despite the splash of brut. I ended up putting too much in my palm though because when I rubbed my hands together, about a third of the aftershave spilled down the front of my shirt and I smell like a junior prom.
I picked up Sloppy and put a diaper on her and we drank milk and watched some Mongolian battles. Then Soapy got tired and I put her to bed and I was going to clean the living room before Ay-nar got back but all I ended up doing was picking up two of soapy's socks and held them in my hand while I watched my movie some more.
But I am making brownies now to make up for it, so that's good, right?

1) Despite having 17.5 miles of corridors, one can walk between any two points in the Pentagon in 7 minutes

2) Turtle blood is not salty and can make a nutritious drink in an emergency (I am reading Life of Pi)

3) Sometimes people don't care about the history of bananas. This is shocking to me. If someone could explain in 45 seconds a brief history of how the banana came to be the United States' most popular fruit, why you will only find the Cavendish variety in supermarkets, and why our grandparents might remember bananas tasting differently when they were kids, wouldn't you want to hear it? As of today I now know that some people don't care.

4) FedEx got a huge boost when UPS went on a week long strike in 1995. Apparently this was a huge deal. Some McDonald's franchises did not have any ketchup because UPS always delivered it.

5) The U.S. Army is only allowed to have 302 Generals at any given time unless the President makes an express exception or during time of war. Also, there are only about 12 four-star generals in service at any given time and the rank only exists for generals in certain job posts. After the term of the job post is complete, the general must retire or revert to two-star rank to continue to serve. I am pretty sure I understood this correctly. Cool, huh? I read a list of every four-star in U.S. history and I was surprised at how many of the names I recognized.

I hope something at work catches on fire for tomorrow's post.

I am a mean older brother

I finished the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series about a week ago. I noticed that the older brother, Rodrick, reminded me of myself. I would consider myself to have been a cruel sibling. I thought for this blog I would write all the mean things I remember doing.

1) I hid in Bryan's bed wearing his diving mask and snorkel and holding his gameboy camera and his BB gun. I jumped out and started beating on him and told him I wasn't going to stop until I took some pictures of real tears.

2) I held David upside down above the toilet 3 inches above the flushing water and turned on a tape recorder. I taped myself slowly lowering him into the swirling water until I captured the essence of pure swirly.

3) I read Lisa's journal and then, on a ride home from a youth fireside with the boy she wrote about in her journal driving, I told the car that I knew who Lisa liked. After some kind passenger commented that it is no fun to know who she used to like, I said it did if he was in the car right then.

4) At scout camp when Bryan and I both worked as counselors, I had a nice tent in a nice corner of a nice lot and didn't have to share with anyone. Bryan had a broken down tent near the path that scouts always threw rocks and trash at. I never offered to share my tent.

5) Once I shot Lisa in the head with a Nerf slingshot.

6) I never liked Alison's bunny Bruno.

7) I don't ever remember being mean to Nathan, other than the years and years of mockery.

8) Once I stole Bryan's tithing jar from his room and ran away with it but he grabbed his BB gun and chased me down a flight of stairs and shot me in the ankle. I fell down the last three stairs and landed on the floor in front of my Mom's room right as she walked out. She saw me laying on the ground clutching my leg with a jar of coins and Bryan standing above me pointing his BB gun at my head. I gave the jar back and he got his gun confiscated.Ha!

9) When I was four Lisa and I went to the store and the nice store manager gave me a free sucker. I picked a green one and I was exited to eat it. Lisa said that it didn't have a wrapper and that I couldn't eat it because it was probably poisoned. She took it and threw it on the ground and then rolled over it with her blue Rainbow Brite roller skates (I know this one isn't really a story about me being mean, but I have to show that it was really probably Lisa that made me what I was).

So I guess that is it, huh? I suppose I was actually a much better brother than I thought I was. I am sure that you (my loving siblings) remember more stories about me than I do. Please write them in the comments or feel free to make me the subject of your own blog post.

I am running out of ideas

I need to have a crazy experience that will take me two weeks to describe. Unfortunately, most of my experiences are pretty ordinary. I am taking the bus tomorrow. That is pretty exciting. The bus that runs from my house to work downtown can get me to work either 40 minutes early or 10 minutes late. So I leave the house now at 6:45 when I used to get up at 7. Bummer. But I get to read on the bus and I have lots of time to myself in the morning to walk the four blocks from the stop to the jail. It's not bad.

When I was a freshman at BYU my sister Lisa said I could use her car for emergencies while she went out of town with friends. It was a Sunday evening and we had dorm visiting hours at the girls' hall so two buddies and I went over there to find that our friends were all going to Nevada to see some friend that had left. They went away and we didn't have anything else to do because we didn't know anyone else. "This," I tried to convince myself "is an emergency if I ever knew one." So we got into Lisa's car and drove to Wendover (across the Utah border in Nevada). One of my friends was 21 and so he could play some nickel machines legally, but my other buddy and I were underage and being so sneaky. I am pretty sure no one cared but we thought we were Cassidy and Sundance. We played about 45 cents and got 4 dollars, so we bought some Arby's and came back home. The whole time out and back we listened to the same James Taylor tape over and over and over again.

This brings me to the point of this story.
I am not one to take songs seriously. I don't trust musicians. But that James Taylor is one wise man. I listened to "Shower the People" about 18 times that night. Perhaps it was the hours of driving through the salt flats, maybe it was because it was 4am, maybe it was the Horsey Sauce, but I decided to shower the people I loved with love and tell them the way that I felt. Things were going to work out fine if I would only do as he says. Ooooooh.
But I started being nicer. That was about it. And I am sure I relapsed, but it is still a nice song and it reminds me of stealing cars and gambling. That was maybe my favorite college time.

Also, I got in big trouble when Lisa found out. She found out because when I filled it with gas I forgot to put the gas cap back. Also apparently she checked the odometer. But it was a long time ago right, Lisa? Heh heh.

And once I walked to Wal-Mart and back along University Avenue at 2am with the same friend. We were sissies and tried to dress tough by wearing a trenchcoat and a fedora. Ha ha. And when the sprinklers came out it sounded like the devil was whispering and we both ran until we realized it was only sprinklers. That was a really long and scary walk and it was totally not worth the box of oatmeal pies I bought.

Some pain

First of all, I would like to think that the seven comments about my last post constitute an uproar in the blogosphere. Calm down folks, calm down. Bryan, I was sure you would have been with me but then I remembered that you were on your mission. I will post a picture that explains it. It makes it a little boring and obvious, sort of like showing the secret to a magic trick, but at least then you can pass on the mystery.



And now to the headline topic. I have three stories about times when I was in a lot of pain.

1) I was in fifth grade when I went to a Bishop's youth council or something like that at our Bishop's house in Virginia. I was jumping on the trampoline with Bryan in the backyard and we were playing rough. I pushed him and he flew off and landed on his back and said "Whoa! That was cool! It didn't even hurt, you should try it!" Lisa and some of her Mia Maid friends came running over to the trampoline to make us get off and so I jumped off like Bryan said to see if it really didn't hurt. I landed on my feet instead of my head but I landed on the ball of my right foot and crumpled up crying. My Mom came over and helped me go to the van. She offered to carry me but I said "No! I don't want to look like a baby." To which she replied "Well you look like a baby now with all your crying."
I remember being a little surprised and I thought it was kind of funny, but I kept on crying anyways.
I had to go to school the next day even though I was in so much pain. I couldn't ever get out of anything growing up. It was a Monday, and I had PE every monday in fifth grade. This PE was our mile run test. I was hobbling around on my poor aching foot for a mile (which used to seem a whole lot longer). I wasn't last though! I beat one kid and was pretty close behind another.
I went home and my foot still hurt real bad, so my Dad took me to the doctor where they told me that I had broken my foot. It was just a greenstick fracture but I still had crutches and a cast. Naturally my Mom was horrified, but more importantly, I was a hero.

2) Once I was in the bathroom and I felt a sharp pinch in between my toes and I looked down and saw this HUGE ant. It bit me right between the second and third toes! I had a welt there afterwards. I had been bitten by ants before, but I didn't remember them feeling that bad. Meh, this story isn't as cool as the first one.

3) On Saturday I went to rake leaves at a house and I was pushing a wheelbarrow with one hand and pulling a big trashcan with another across bumpy ground when the wheelbarrow snagged a bump and I hit my left knee on one of the metal leg supports. It hurt really bad and I kind of wanted to sit down and yell, but I had to look cool in front of the High Priests. I still have a big bruise on my kneecap.

Man...my stories got lamer as I went. But they all really hurt and that is what is important. Have you ever gotten hurt really bad?

Also, here is Anna's whatever so she doesn't slash my tires:
anna Is pretty funny, even when i say she isn't. she deaLs with a lot of my antics and does a good jOb at forgetting how annoying i can be at 11:30 at night. she listens very patiently to my rants and encourages my productive behavior. she makes the best rolls and also likes to bake the cookies after i haVe mixed all the ingredients. she likes to load the dishwasher (which i can't stand- it was my punishmEnt too often growing up) and dislikes unloading the dishwasher (which is hardly even a chore for me- it is like play time). You are a pretty good mom to soapstar and even though i sometimes teach her how to squirt milk from her bottle or grind crumbs intO the carpet you tell me i am a good dad. also, thanks for getting up and taking care of slumpy when it is so early and i am dead. you are ok. i think we shoUld stay married.

a cool problem

Three years ago Anna and I went to Virginia for Christmas. We were reading Marilyn vos Savant and her explanation of what is known as the Monty Hall problem. I was astounded by it. So much so that we recreated it in the living room and found that it was real. I present it to you now in my own version:

Suppose you are on a game show and there are three doors. Behind each door is a prize. There is a Hostess orange cupcake behind one of the doors and Vomit Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Jelly Beans behind the other two doors.
You are told to pick one of the three doors, which you do. Instead of opening that door, the game show host (who knows what is behind each of the three doors) opens one of the other two doors; one that has a jelly bean behind it. You are left with two doors and instructions to make another choice. You may chose your original door or the other closed door. Should you stick with your original choice or switch?

Which would you do?

You should switch. Your odds have changed. You should switch and have your odds increased.

When you picked the first time, you had a 1/3 chance of getting the door with the cupcake. After the host opens up a jelly bean door, everything changes. If you stick with your original pick, you still have only a 33% chance of getting the cupcake even though it seems like nothing should change.
If you switch doors, your odds shoot to 66%. You will get the cupcake 2/3 of the time if you switch.

In other words, there is a 66% probability that the first door you pointed at was a barf bean. When the other bean is revealed, you should switch to the door that now has a 66% probability of hiding the cupcake.

Cool, huh?

A baptism

Today there was a baptism for the wife and three of the four kids of a new member. He was baptized two weeks ago and today his family followed suit. I was asked to give the talk on baptism. I am not the most logical choice to speak to a 12, 10, and 8 year old and their mother, but it went pretty well. The youngest of the girls (6 years old) was bawling the entire time because she was the only one who wasn't getting baptized. It was all out sobbing too, none of this sniffling and facial contortion business. She went through about a dozen big paper towels. I brought enough little ctr rings for her to have one and it was a good thing I did. That could have been tragic.

Also, Soapy has started wanting to take things into her crib with her. Sometimes she takes this certain little bear that is her favorite. We have no idea why. It has a plastic tag on it that neither Anna I I ever get around to taking off, and it is really small and not so cuddly. I cannot imagine why any manufacturer would think it was a good idea to create this bear. I am almost positive it came in a package with some flowers or a bottle of wine or something. But Soapy loves it and carries it around. It makes her happy when she has to get 4 am emergency diaper changes (those cold wipes are killers). Lately she has been taking books into bed with her. The first book was the little red serviceman's book of mormon. We tried to take it from her before bedtime but she threw a huge fit. We figured there could be worse things to want to carry around all the time so we let it pass. Since then she has also taken the serviceman's D&C, new testament, and a fuzzy dog book. I think she likes them because they are tiny.

5 things today

1) Lawyers can come and visit their clients in jail everytime whenever they want(2:01). Most of them know what they are doing and go and do whatever it is they do without bothering me. Some of them come in and ask me questions that make me weep for their clients. I had an attorney ask me what day it was, what the charges for her client were, and then the court dates. And then which day the date fell on. And then how many days away that was. I am not even kidding. I am pretty sure that every client I have seen her work with has been deported.
Another guy came in today to ask me if his client (who he was just in court with) was in or out of jail. And then he asked me how to file an appeal and how to get a Spanish appeal. I told him maybe he should go to the court and ask them. He asked if I had a paper in Spanish to file an appeal. I said I did not have one. I recognized this lawyer because twice before (twice!) he asked if he could leave his duffel bag (!?) in the lobby because he couldn't get a locker key because the only ID he carries on him is his passport (!?). Same duffel bag both times and same excuse about the passport.

2) I love my job partly because I am grossly overqualified. I have been a superstar all this year because I am overqualified for everything I could get hired for. I have loaded boxes in trucks, picked up construction trash, sprayed out filthy recycling bins, folded t-shirts, and now I talk on the phone. It is nice to know that you are going to exceed everyone's expectations because you know how to pay attention for longer than 15 minutes at a time and aren't going to try and steal the hand soap dispenser. But if I have to do this much longer I am going to rip my eyebrows off.

3) Any way you think about it, the universe is weird. It either had a beginning or it has existed forever. Either option is fantastic and sounds made up. I just started a new audiobook. I finished another Nero Wolfe and started listening to A Brief History of Time.

4) Since I have been at the jail, three people on separate occasions have gone to support a friend/son/husband in court. You have to show an ID to get into the courthouse. These three didn't realize that your ID is checked against a list of warrants and were arrested in the courtroom and brought straight to the jail. Ha!

5) I rode home today and it was raining just lightly enough that it was more of a coarse wet fog. In glasses, this would have been unbearable. Thanks to my February LASIK, I was great. I did notice that the same effect happened on my eyes. The drops would hit my eyes and I would have blurry patches where the rain would drip down my cornea. But then I would blink and it would be normal again. I tried to keep my eyes open to see how blurry my eyes would get in the rain but they got too dried out with my riding my bike and all. I'll have to try walking and not blinking. I wonder if our eyelids would atrophy if our heads were permanently in a saline solution. Or maybe just fill up some goggles. You could totally win any blinking contest. I really want to try this now. Bryan, you'll try it too, huh? I know this sounds cool to you.

Flying dreams

My very favorite dreams are the ones that I can fly in. I have them maybe once every few months. Once I was on top of a big grassy hill (I am pretty sure it is the one from the cover of The Sound of Music. It could also have been that big idyllic hill from the Microsoft background); once I was on a basketball court (that same one from Flubber); and most recently I was in the aisles of Wal-Mart (but the layout was Smith and Edwards).
The technique for flying is always the same. It is a mix between swimming and using parallel bars. I have to scissor-kick and tread with my hands to move up, but I can float by hanging from my armpits like you would on a bar. Sometimes I think that I ought to be able to do it in real life because it seems legit.
The Smith and Edwards/Wal-mart dream was about a month ago. I dreamed that I was in my pajamas, but they were actually just a big red t-shirt that barely covered my thighs. I was running around trying to help people shop for Christmas decorations when I remembered that I knew how to fly. I was going from one shelf top to the next. It was nice because I was helping people buy wreaths and garlands but it was really embarrassing because I knew everyone could see my underwear. I tried to help people quickly and then run away on the shelf tops. I woke up and I was still embarrassed.
I am pretty sure I was just reliving my day though. When I got home from work, Anna felt nauseated so we went to Subway (because one can never be too sick for Subway. Or brownies.) There was a handrail there and Soapy and I were playing on it and she was trying to walk along it. Then we went to the grocery store and walked around. I couldn’t find jammies for Soapy that night so I got one of Anna’s old t-shirts and used it. It was pretty huge on her.
Uh... then I found five dollars.

Have you had any noteworthy dreams lately?

Some mission journal excerpts

I was wondering what i could write today and I was having a hard time thinking of something. Today was Veteran's Day and I didn't have to go to work. I slept in for about an hour and then went on a long bike ride and got lost in Wilderness Park. It is over 10 miles of winding singletrack on the outskirts of Lincoln. I saw this huge buck twice and got scared by a cote of doves flushed from the underbrush when I passed. The coo-ed all at the same time and it sounded like a vacuum cleaner. After I got back I sat around with Anna and Soapy, we went on a walk and we made muffins for dinner. It feels like the weekend, and in typical weekend fashion, I have no desire to do anything requiring thought.
With that in mind, I present my NaBloPoMo post for 11 November: some mission journal stories. I don't have any entries for 11 November so I will do the closest to it.

Friday, November 7, 2003
What a week. holy crap. There was the monster flood that soaked my shoes and all, the electricity went out and we had to live by candle light, I had no hot water to shower in and we couldn't use the stove or fridge or anything. Then I went and watched Mountain of the Lord and saw how softcore I am.
Oh yeah. The electricity is back. Yay! Also I had a dream the other night that Snoop Dogg was teaching me how to dance by holding the hair on my legs and moving them like crutches. It was really funny and it made perfect sense at the time.

Thursday, November 13, 2003
So I got that CD player. Also I got the best lamb gyro yesterday. It was so good. I even farted this morning and it smelled like the lamb souvlaki.
Emmanuel was baptized last sunday. It went really well. He'll get the Holy Ghost this sunday.
Oh yeah, while we were doorknocking, some lady was all "oh, come on in!" but I thought she said go away or not now so I was all "oh. can we come tomorrow then?" so I killed it. The only time I would have gotten in by doorknocking and I slaughtered it. I could really go for another one of those gyros though.

Ha ha ha. What a lovable scoundrel.

Another post about jail

Also, I have tomorrow off work! Woo!
I typed this in word, but I don't know how to change the font to be all uniform without having to highlight it all again, so I wont bother with it.

Names have been slightly altered to protect me in case my boss ever reads this. Jail stuff is public information but inmates here are definitely not worth getting in trouble for.

1) I had lots of calls today about women assaulting their husbands. One caller was trying to find out information about Schmawn Schurcell that apparently beats up a lot of people. I was on the phone with the caller trying to help her get all of the pertinent information and I saw that someone had just posted the Schmawn’s bail. I told this to the caller who got a little upset and went into a bit of an epic story about their history together. This was a little after 4 pm and I got off work at 4:30 so I decided to listen and chat for a while. About 7 minutes later this woman walked out of confinement and I told the caller that I am pretty sure the short woman with the short blond hair was Schmawn. The caller said “Yeah, that’s probably her. She looks kind of like a man, huh?” Then the caller started calling her a dork and making fun of her and it was really funny. Jail doesn’t usually bring too many lols.

2) There is a service called Nebraska Relay that relays telephone calls from deaf people. There is an operator on the other end of the line that types to the caller and reads out the caller’s responses very professionally and clearly. It is a nice break from the normal calls that end up in tears and impassioned vows. One call in particular was from someone typing very fast and who did not know anything about the legal system. The call went a little like this (remember the caller is speaking clearly and calmly the whole time):

NRS: “Nebraska relay service, this is operator 1816, have you received a relay call before?”

Me: “Yes I have”

NRS: “Alright. Please wait one moment for your call to begin… Yes is Schmerrance Schmame in custody and what is bond? Go ahead.”

Me: “Yes he’s here and he has a $5000 percentage bond so it will be $500 to bail him out.”

NRS: “Why does he not have $500? Why are you keeping him in jail? Go ahead.”

Me: “He needs $500 to be bonded out and he is here for (I don’t remember the charge. Something pretty boring and common though.)”

NRS: “No. No you are wrong. %*&# no. I will find you and tell you &%$#@@ why are you doing this &*$@ no. No you $#%@. Go ahead.”

Me: “Uhhh. I don’t know what to tell you.”

NRS: “%$&@#. And the caller has hung up.”

Me: “OK. Thanks.”

NRS: “Thank you.”

3) People often call and get really bad news from me. The find out their husbands, brothers, sons and boyfriends have been charged and convicted of some pretty heinous stuff. Naturally these people are worried and want to communicate with or comfort their loved ones. I am the lucky sap that gets paid $9 an hour to tell them that the inmates can make collect calls out (which don’t work with cell phones), receive visits during visiting hours (6pm to 10:30 pm if the inmate has made a visiting list with the person’s name on it and I can only tell someone their name is on it if they come to the jail with a picture ID), or get letters through the mail.

3a) People are weird about the mail. It takes a day or two to send a letter to an inmate, but people will prefer to wait a week for a visit (inmates can only have 2 visits a week) to ask something instead of sending a letter that will get there the next day. And I get the most swears when I tell people to write a letter.

I have to be the one to tell people from Colorado, Illinois, California and Florida that I cannot tell them whether they are on the visiting list or not unless they are in the jail with a picture ID. I am the one to tell people that their precious boy is charged with attempted 1st degree sexual assault on a child. I am the one to tell people that the keys to the car parked illegally that is going to get towed can only be released on Thursdays between 12 and 2. I get to be the guy that says “No I can’t take the title to your house in lieu of bond money. You need to have cash.”

This is not the most fun, but reading all day makes up for it. My favorite part is when someone is so furious and angry that they forget that they are supposed to be rude or indignant and they thank me before they hang up or storm out. I would say about 70% of the bad news call I have end in the caller thanking me. Sometimes they say “Thank you, Officer.” Then I feel cool.

4) Lots of people ask me whether so-and-so “is currently a guest lodged in your fine facility? Heh heh.” Oh man… it gets so old. I feel rude not laughing so I try to make it sound like I was smiling in my voice inflection when I respond and tell them that so-and-so is charged with strangulation or criminal conspiracy to deliver crack cocaine.

5) The worst worst worst experience is when I have spent about 10 minutes helping someone out with some questions they have, directed them to the public defender, given them some practical advice about planning an inmate visit and all that kindly eagle scout stuff, and then as we exchange our cordial goodbyes, I hear the toilet flush.

6) The most common birthday for inmates here is January first. It is common enough that it makes me think that there is some sort of hidden indicators. I made one up that I would bet money on. My guess is that 1-1 is a kind of default birthday that people will adopt if they are not sure what their birthday really is. It is as good a day as any and makes a good default if you only know your birth year. And someone that grew up in the kind of environment where you don’t know your own birthday is probably not going to be a total stranger to the correctional system. I feel a little like Steven Leavitt.

my bike ride

On Saturday I rode from Lincoln to Eagle and back. It was about 16 miles each way. It took me an hour and 15 minutes to get there and I rode around a little bit and looked at the stores (there were about 7 of them) and then realized that I had 45 minutes to get back home before Anna had to be at a quilting class.
I rode so fast. I did not want to get in trouble. Remember that this took me 75 minutes going out and I had 45 to get home.
Luckily I am awesome and made it with about 9 seconds to spare. As I got to the front door, the woman who was giving Anna a ride parked and came inside with. I was very nearly in trouble and had this kind sister not come inside behind me I am sure I would have been.
Anna had a great time at the class and had forgotten that I was supposed to be in trouble when she got back so everyone won.

One of the reasons I went on a ride was to take pictures of the Nebraskan wilds. There were some mega-sweet pictures that should have been taken on the ride home, but I was pedaling like a maniac and couldn't stop. Really my legs were burning for 45 minutes straight. My bike only has one gear and cannot coast so I was literally pedaling the entire time. 16 miles in (under mind you) 45 minutes comes out to an average speed of over 20 mph. Constantly for 3/4 of an hour. On limestone. And no water. And I forgot to eat breakfast. I hope everyone agrees that this is cool.

Here are some of my pictures:
This is at the trailhead heading east. I am about three miles from home and near the eastern boundary of the city of Lincoln. The trail is the MoPac (Missouri-Pacific) trail, converted to crushed limestone from rails.



This is a large Nebraskan mountain range. Also some corn and a cell phone tower.



Tractor crossing. Traffic can get get a bit congested out here and its good to keep the populous alert to dangers.



Token cow picture. I actually saw a way better cow picture but I had to hurry so I wouldn't get in trouble. This other cow I saw had walked to the most remote corner of fenced in property- like it had walked into the apex of an 30 degree angle within 3 feet of fence in front of and to either side of it. It was about 8 feet from the path and just staring. The next closest cow must have been about a half mile off.

If this is a picture you wish you could have seen, feel free to visit Anna's blog and let her know that Chris ought not get in trouble for being late anymore, ever. Your contribution counts.

What the Bleep!? Down the Rabbit Hole

There is a movie called What the Bleep!? Down the Rabbit hole. I watched this movie yesterday and finished it up today. It is a movie about quantum physics. Man... our world is seriously messed up. Here are some of the things that were cool:

1) Superposition
So at the quantum level, Newtonian laws do not apply (gravity, friction, etc.) It turns out that even our most fundamental sense of logic is thrown out. There is a phenomenon called superposition where one particle can be in multiple places at the same time. There are documented pictures of this. This is real stuff! On the documentary there were particles in two places at the same time and an example of one particle in 3,000 places at the same time. Someone asked whether one of the particles would weigh 1/3000 of the particle and the scientists explained that you couldn't weigh it because it was all one particle in 3000 places at once. Man... that is so cool.

2) Slit test
This is a pretty famous test and I had heard of it before, but it was cool to see it happen. The observation of the electrons made them act as particles instead of waves. The act of observation changed the result. If the recorder were to be unplugged, then it would act as a wave. It is the human observation that alters the results!
When they tried to find out mathematically whether it went through slit 'A', slit 'B', both slits, or neither slit, they found that none of these happened. The scientist being interviewed during this portion said that asking where the electron went was like asking whether the number 5 is married.
"No" you would say, "the number 5 is not married."
"Oh" the unenlightened you would conclude, "so the number 5 must be single."
Asking where the electron was is an inappropriate question for the sequence. I don't know why, but that is pretty cool.
Here is that clip (and watch for West Wing Joey at the end):


3) Intention and random event generators
This portion has some skeptics within the scientific community, but it is still pretty cool. There are lots of experiments that show that intention can alter random number generators. If the observer wants more 1s than 0s, then the RNG will produce more 1s than 0s. There was an experiment where this was tested retroactively. There was a machine to produce random clicks into a pair of headphones. It would send a click to either the left or right speaker. It was recorded with no one listening to it, a copy was made and sealed, and the master was sent to a person hundreds of miles away. This person was instructed to want more left clicks than right clicks. There were considerably more left than right, and when they checked the sealed copy, it was identical. wooOOooOOooOOoo.

4) Peptide addiction
I don't really know why this part was in the movie but it was still cool. I was watching Soapy and we were playing with dominos so maybe I missed some sort of segway. The film talked about addictions to feelings. It said when someone feels a certain way very often, it is probably because they have an addiction to feeling that way. The hypothalmus produces peptides that are sent to the cell receptors that influence feelings and emotions. The cells produce their own proteins to keep it up. When we think about something often enough, we hardwire the neuro cells' receptors to create those connections. This happens physically all the time- it is why after practice, people can perform complex activities (typing, knitting, signing, even running or swimming) without consciously thinking about the location of fingers, arms, legs, or center of balance.
Emotions can become interlaced with memories and thought processes. As we go through our day, our thoughts can guide or reactions and our self-programmed responses. If we are overly concerned with feeling victimized, lonely, angry, or even happy, then those thoughts create the lens through which we interpret our reality. It is sort of a self-fulfilling prophesy- if you feel a certain emotion, your environment will catalyse it and it will become real. Thoughts will shape your life.
Man radiates what he is, and that radiation affects to a greater or less[er] degree every person who comes within that radiation” (David O. McKay “Free Agency … The Gift Divine,” Improvement Era, Feb. 1962, 87).
“Thoughts mold your features. Thoughts lift your soul heavenward or drag you toward hell. … As nothing reveals character like the company we like and keep, so nothing foretells futurity like the thoughts over which we brood.” (David O. McKay “Those Sculptors Called Thoughts and Ideals,” Improvement Era, July 1960, 495)

LOL videos

A sampling of the videos that always make me laugh.

First is Rap Cat.


Ha ha ha.

Next comes Rap Chop, a parody of Slap Chop. There was a time where I would listen to this at least four times a day.


My favorite part is at 00:45 where he says "Stop having a boring tuna. Stop having a boring life."

This video is my very favorite. I present Nosferatu dancing to Lady Gaga.


There are no words. This is just brilliant.

The last of my cop-out blogging videos is some guys in Norway. They do some cool tricks in the winter montage, but the summer tricks are crazy. The guys look like Gandalf.

Buffalo

While I was wasting time today I came across this sentence which, by the way, is grammatically correct and is meaningful:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

If you have seen this before, it is awesome, huh? If you have not seen it before, try and figure it out for a while.

Hint #1: Buffalo is used as the city, bison, and bully here.
Hint#2: I don't have any more hints now. Here is another way of writing it:

The bison from Buffalo that bison from Buffalo bully also bully bison from Buffalo. Cool huh?


I also found another sentence that looked crazy. This one is not punctuated correctly, but it is still pretty neat:

James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher.

If you haven't seen it before, I think it is impossible to decipher.
With punctuation the sentence reads:

James, while John had had "had", had had "had had"; "had had" had had a better effect on the teacher.


Another sentence without correct punctuation:

That that is is that that is not is not is that it it is

with punctuation it would read:

That that is, is. That that is not, is not. Is that it? It is.


And then I found some garden path sentences. I already knew this one:

The horse ran past the barn fell

meaning, the horse fell and the horse ran past the barn, but I hadn't seen some of these others, and I thought they were cool:

The farmer threw the cow over the fence some hay


The old man the boat

Very busy day at the jail today...

Long Nights

I was reading in bed the other night and I thought about how it used to seem so cool to try and stay awake for 24 hours. It still does seem kind of cool. It is sort of the exhaustion gold standard. I have only done it once, but time zones and adrenaline played a big part in that. Most of the time, it is sloppy and miserable. I have three stories about bad nights.

1) The night before I went to the temple in Ogden before my mission, I went out on a double date with a buddy. I was staying at a cousin's house and got home a little late. All the lights were off in the house and the front door was locked. I didn't want to wake anyone up, and there were no open windows or doors that I knew of. I figured it was pretty late already and I wouldn't have to sleep a really long time before someone woke up and opened the front door.
I reclined the driver's seat and closed my eyes assuming I could nap for 5-6 hours and wake up refreshed. About 45 minutes later I woke up shivering. I had fogged up all the windows and my shirt got twisted all around my neck. I turned on the car and drove a couple of miles with the heater on until the windows cleared and I felt warm again.
"I had better be sure and keep that window cracked" I thought to myself, "or else the windows will get fogged again." Five minutes later I closed the window because I was too cold. I slept for about an hour until my shivering woke me up and my leg and arm were numb. Those seats make awful beds. I got up drove around the block again, this time a little longer, exploring the train tracks and a scary factory. I drove back in front of the house and tried to sleep a little more. This went on all night. I woke up and drove around two more times before I woke up to my cousin looking in through the window and laughing. That was a horrible night.

2) In May, Anna and I went out to Virginia for her brother's wedding. We had a great time, but Soapy was still kind of small. Our last night in Virginia was hectic because we had to pack up all our stuff for our morning flight. Soapy was not happy and would not go to bed. She kept on crying and throwing her pacifier and talking. She was cranky because she hadn't taken any naps that day and it was just bad all around. We were in the same room or else we could have just ignored her and let her cry herself to sleep. I ended up taking her out of the crib and playing for a few minutes with her until she got cranky doing that to. I ended up laying on the couch with her on my chest in a bear hug so she wouldn't flail and fling herself off the edge of the sofa. I woke up about every 20 minutes through the whole night, but I slept a lot on the plane, so I guess it wasn't so bad.

3) The MONSTER story of all. I was awake for 52 hours once. That's really the only impressive part of the story. It was, again, right before I went to the MTC for my mission. I woke up at 8 and wasted my day, went on a date, went to work from midnight to 2 am, stayed up all night packing and watching Simpsons, went and did baptisms at 6 am (i figured since I was already up I might as well be productive), caugh the shuttle at 11, flew from Salt Lake to New York to Paris (watching movies the whole time of course), where I waited 9 hours for a delayed flight. I tried to take a nap but that airport is nasty and I couldn't go to sleep. I was on the floor and thought I heard someone tell some jokes, so I started laughing and realized that I was daydreaming and it was a flight announcement in French. That freaked me out. I went to the front desk and asked about the flight and the lady said that it is a good thing I did because I had 20 minutes before it left and if I didn't catch that flight I would have to wait 15 more hours for the next flight to Berlin. Apparently my parents called to find out my status and they assumed I would not have been able to catch a flight until that one 15 hours later, so when I did finally land in Tempelhof there was no one to come see me. Luckily I had some change in my pockets and I called home and asked Mom to come and get me. I was happy that the family felt bad that I was abandoned in the airport after 52 hours awake.

How to be a glutton

I have a friend that is one of those hyper-charismatic types. When you meet him you want him to like you. I haven't pinned down what it is about him but he is a mega pop-star. We met as new missionaries in Provo and he was automatically everybody's favorite. In Greece, he was always getting hit on by cashiers and ladies on the street. I would make myself feel better by saying it was the shirt and tie, and I only noticed his attention more than my own. The "grass is always greener" business. But I knew it was a lie.
In any case, he was a pretty fat guy and was constantly dieting and trying new tricks to lose weight. I am sure this must be in the white handbook by now, but there weren't any rules about dieting as a missionary when we were out. Or maybe we didn't study the handbook enough. The worst was when the Atkins Diet started working for him. He would eat steak every day and moan for want of fruit and bread. I was pretty sure he was dying, but it was pretty funny so I didn't stop him.
During this agony he would tell me stories about the food he ate before his mission, which brings me to the topic of my headline.
This Elder worked at McDonalds for a few months until he got fired for eating the burgers and pies that sat on the timer for too long that were supposed to be thrown out and recorded. He told me that sometimes, before a typically slow period, he would cook a lot of extra food just so there would be lots to "throw out" when no one came to purchase it. After he got fired, he used the managerial skills he saw at McDonalds and his charisma to land a floor manager job at the Bond Street NEXT in London. Just like that. He told me that he went in for an interview and told the interviewers that he was considering the Armani Exchange position down the street after they told him he could take it if he wanted it. At this job, he managed people twice his age with families, and he was a 19 year old kid living at home. What a character.
But anyways, he told me how to eat so that you wouldn't get full too fast. He said he ate McDonalds everyday he worked there and never once got sick of it. The trick, he explained, was to put it in your mouth and swallow it the moment you can get it down. Gobble it up and stuff it fast enough and your body won't register that it is full and you can eat a lot more.

I have remembered this for over six years now and I had not tried it until two weeks ago. I was at work, minding my own business, probably wasting time on Wikipedia when a co-worker comes in and says that she brought donuts. Then another co-worker comes in a brings donuts too. Unfortunately, there were only about 16 in one box and 9 in the other. The jail has about 25 administration staff and over 100 officers. We had only 25 donuts. I went in and made my choice (chocolate bar), thanked the donators, and returned to my desk where I thought about how to get more. A few minutes later I found a paper I could photocopy, walked past the table and saw that there were still about 11 left, pretended to look for a rubberband and snatched a strawberry frosted on my way back to my desk.
I knew some people had seen me eat the chocolate bar, so I had to eat this one stealthily. One of my job responsibilities is to press a button under the desk to unlock the door to the administration area so staff and officers can get in. The desk is only 3.5 feet tall and I'm sure not going to stop anyone who wants to get back there so the security it is pointless (but kind of cool.) Because I have to press the button for people to get in, it isn't unusual for me to fumble around when someone comes by so it is easy to scoot the half-eaten donut out of view when anyone passes. Nice.
I figured I was set. I had my fun, and was ready to sit back and enjoy my well-deserved 15 minute break at 10:00 in the kitchen. When I got there, there were still FIVE donuts left! These people are crazy! Donuts are gold! I never had donuts growing up and we never have donuts now. I still get excited when I think about getting donuts for free. Such a luxury. So I was in the break room looking at these donuts. Two were glazed-nice but nothing special. Two were apple fritters-classy but huge and unconcealable.
And there it was. I don't know how I had missed it before but here it was taunting me: a custard Bavarian. I couldn't believe my luck. I am the only person who takes a break in the break room because everyone else has offices, so I knew I wouldn't be interrupted, but the copier and the hallway were on either side of me and I knew there would be traffic. My mind raced and I thought back on my lessons:
"As fast as you can...chew only enough to swallow without gagging...fast...chomp chomp..."
I ate that donut in 5 bites and about 44 seconds. No one saw me, I had eaten 1/8 of the office supply, I was the winner and I felt so bad.
My lovable buddy never told me that you would not get to enjoy the taste when you inhale your food. I should have gone to the bathroom or on a walk around the block to eat it or something. I had let this beautiful pastry go to waste by eating it. Irony of ironies. So the lesson I learned and pass on to you is that it is not worth sneaking obscene amounts of free stuff if you wont be able to enjoy it properly.