Fiberous Tickings of Bran

God's wrath (or sense of humor). You pick.

2011-06-13T20:12:00.000-07:00

You might say that I was a very fastidious student. That might be an understatement. But that's not specifically what this post is about, so we'll leave that there.

There was only one time in particular when I remember free loading. It was the last week of my university career (the reading day before finals). My international tax teacher had agreed to let us do the final project (filling out a 5471 information return) in groups. While I normally prefer to not work in groups at all (so much easier to be fastidious on one's own), I was fairly worn out by this point of my career (new baby, both of us trying to finish our grad degrees, senior-itis) and I was eager for a little "help" from my classmates.

So I did something completely uncharacteristic of me and organized a 'party' for anyone in the class who wanted to get together to complete the return. Also completely uncharacteristic of me, I didn't really even look at the return before the party (okay... a little... but way less than the normal me would have). I went to the party, copied down the answer that we came up with together and got it ready to hand in.

The teacher had promised us a lively discussion about the form... or as lively as is humanely possible about a form put out by the government. So I had promised myself that I would at least look over my classmates' answers before our final and try to understand it. But I didn't.

Then came the first portion of God's wrath. The Gardner had a fun game for us to play.

"Everyone, this is going to be the best final ever. Please pick a number one to one-hundred." I settled on 67. The magic number was 62 and I was the closest. Oh goodie, what did I win. An A? A candy bar? what?

I had won the opportunity to come down in front of everyone and explain each line of the 5471. Gah! Thanks to some jokes and some help from the class... I made it through. But it was rough.

I figured that this ordeal was punishment enough. But the wrath had not ended. I come to Canada and start my job and immediately, I am put on a project with a different group than mine to prepare some 150 odd 5471s for a very wealthy US citizen gone Canadian. I've prepared some 50 or so. The man's social security number and address forever ingrained in my psyche (this hasn't been one of those cases where you type it in once and it flows to the rest of the return. Both of those facts about him must be typed in three times each on each one).

As God as my witness, I will never freeload again. The consequences are more than I can bear.

Can man survive without woman?

2011-06-12T20:09:00.000-07:00

Amy and Hyrum are gone for the week to Washington. So I attended a ward potluck today without them. As I introduced myself to people, I let them know about Amy and Hyrum's situation... so they wouldn't be too shocked were I to be holding a baby next time they saw me... and telling people that they existed seems to just be part of the introduction process. Repeatedly, I got similar reactions usually revovling around how hard it was going to be for me to not have someone to provide me with some good homecooking. I've gotten similar responses when Amy was pregnant, when she toured the UK with BYU Singers, when we were apart during our move etc. So I'm pretty used to them. I generally just smile and say yup.

One comment today in particular was laughable. A woman responded, "Good thing there was a potluck today so you could at least have something to eat tonight." I really wanted to reply, "Oh yes, it is such a miracle. I don't know what I would've done. This is the only thing I'm planning on eating this week. I mean, by Wednesday or so, I might get desperate enough that I'll have to figure out how to order a pizza or open a package of oreos or something. But yeah... I'm completely uncapable of even remotely taking care of myself."

Then my next instinct was to be a little more truthful yet sarcastic and be like, "Yeah, it's rough. Last night I had to cook for myself. The best I could do was a medium rare steak with roasted red potatoes and broccoli. Then this morning I had to settle for breakfast sausage, fried egg, toast, strawberries, bananas and camomille tea. And tonight, I was thinking I was going to be forced to eat a cheddar dijon chicken broccoli mixture on authentic made-at-home-by-me flour tortillas." [side note... I just finished making/eating the above mentioned thing (I'm not sure what to call it...burritos? wraps? heaven?) and it was AMAZING!]

I settled on, "Yup I'm glad there's a potluck" and moved on. I don't want to upset the world too much because I know how scary a man who is powerful in the kitchen can be to a woman. I assume I'm not the only man feigning helplessness to help women feel good about themselves. I mean, if women knew that we could survive [as in eat and keep house] without them then they might feel that their only real purposes in this life were reproductive and to help us spend our salaries. And we [men] do like them [women], so we don't want them to feel unneeded or useless. And for this reason, I just say yup.

But this got me thinking. Are we just being nice and letting women think we need them for this or are there a good proportion of this men who are helpless in the kitchen? I know I'm a little more adept than most, but I don't I've ever met anyone who was completely hopeless. Like, my dad's one of the more macho men I know... and I believe that he could survive. Once when I was an early teen my mom went to Europe for a month... and I don't remember much about that month besides burning my mom's tupperware in a bonfire, but I'm pretty sure we survived okay. I did hear a tale from a friend about a roommate who turned frozen chicken nuggets into charcoal... but I feel like stories like this are hopefully the exception.

Thoughts?

Please revel in the rejection a bit longer....

2011-06-07T22:06:00.001-07:00

Today Amy sent me to the store on the way home to pick up ground beef because our loveable neighborhood grocery store supposedly gives you 10% off on the first Tuesday of the month, and she had forgotten earlier (although she had remembered the hummus because she is a hippie and not a carnivore).

Anyways, so I get to the self checkout with my ground beef and Canadian oreos (yet another thing that just isn't quite the same). I check out and get to a screen where it asks me whether I wanted 10% off or extra skymiles for my special first Tuesday of the month thing. I clicked on the 10% and then it proceeded to tell me that I wasn't qualified for the deal (I learned later that it was because I hadn't spent over $30).

Then to ensure that I acknowledged that I was a failure, another screen popped up asking me to push a button to acknowledge that I wasn't getting the 10% off. How much rejection do grocery shoppers need these days? If I hadn't spent enough, was it really necessary to even offer the 10% to me to begin with? And then was it really necessary to dig the rejection into me like a spork dripping with poisoned macaroni?

It's a good thing the machine took my $20 bill... because if it had rejected my queen paper, that would've been a bit too much.

If YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH

2011-06-06T20:57:00.000-07:00

Then maybe you shouldn't ask.

I'm pretty open... duh. And I'll admit that there have been plenty of times when I have volunteered information without being asked. But if you ask, there's no question... I'm probably going to answer you. And you probably better be okay with that.

Here are the times when questions have led to the most problems....

I had a roommate at BYU that I didn't get on great with. Once I was in a bad mood and he suggested that I take a cup or something back to the girls who had lent it to us. I told him that I didn't want to talk to girls. He asked if I was heterosexual.... let's just say that our relationship never really recovered from that one.

Tests.... these aren't really a part of my life anymore sadly. But I would always hate the "What did you get" question. I have an uncanny ability to do well on tests. It's really my only life skill and it's not really useful anymore. So last semester, in my tax classes, I got the high on every test... time after time after time unfortunately. Questions would only result in strange reactions. Whenever anybody would ask, I would want to scream, "Let's look at the track record okay.. .it's higher than yours... I'm sorry... but at least you have lots of job offers" (I was hard pressed to find one). I just wanted normalcy. I would hate the reactions that would clearly seem to state, "I didn't really want to know." Well friends, don't ask, don't tell.

Most recently, a co-worker (3 years my senior in accounting experience) asked about my salary. Now I know you aren't supposed to discuss these kind of things.... but he asked. So while slightly more hesitant at first, I did tell him. Only to find out that I did in fact make substantially more than him. He hasn't been awful about it.... but it has been awkward... and he has brought it up a few times since then. I apologized profusely and said that I had no idea why it would be so (informing him that I'm positive that he's more valuable to the company than me)... but yeah.

So moral of the story... unless you're going to be okay with whatever possible answer comes out of my mouth... you should be careful what you ask. I'm just not the sort of person that waits for the most heated sessions of truth or dare to let things come out. Gah... I sure hope I never have secret information. I wouldn't last long in interrogation.

Segregation

2010-11-26T20:05:00.000-08:00

Did you know that the Orem city library separates its religious books into different areas depending on whether they are written by Mormons or not even though they have the same call numbers? I realized this the hard way when I had to find a book written by Rabbi Kushner for my ethics class this weekend. Would it really be that concerning if books by Rabbis occasionally touched books that were written by Sheri Dew? I was curious to see if they separated Stephanie Meyer's books to a holier plane than other books about vampires, but I had a cold, pregnant wife in the car, so I didn't do more research on the matter.

Major validation

2010-11-24T07:33:00.000-08:00

I'm writing on my blog to avoid writing a rather lengthy paper for an organizational behavior elective that I took presupposing it to be easy. It hasn't been difficult, but getting myself to work on this paper has made me re-realize how much I dislike writing.

In short, I finally think that I'm in a good major for me.... very little writing for the most part.

Recommending foreign films

2010-08-19T22:20:00.000-07:00

I have noticed that nine out of five times that I recommend a foreign film (Most recently The Red Violin) to someone the response is, "Oh is it like Amelie?" And then I want to respond, "ummm by 'like Amelie', do you mean a movie where there's English words on the screen and not English words coming out of character's vocal folds? NO they're not alike: one is light-hearted and silly and the other is romantic, dramatic, and cerebral."

Here's a good way to explain the difference between Amelie and the Red Violin.

SAT question 1

Amelie is to The red violin as The Proposal is to .

a. While you were sleeping

b. Inception

c. Two Weeks Notice

d. Miss Congeniality

Did you put B... because that would be the 'most correct' answer. The Proposal and Inception have the following in common with each other... umm, they're both in English.

So the next time you feel inclined to compare any other foreign film with Amelie in your mind, try to remember that there are different genres of movies in the foreign world too.

Public Service Announcement

2010-07-08T17:58:00.000-07:00

The newest menace to society is scheduled to arrive on January 3, 2011. (For tax planning purposes, we would hope to have it arrive before Dec 31, 2010).

Beware...
Be scared....
that really geeky, obnoxious kid reproduced....

Honey Nut Chicken Stir Fry

2010-07-08T17:42:00.000-07:00

Here's a delicious recipe that I made today. Sorry that there's no fun pictures (my sister has her camera with her at college). Again remember that I don't really measure... so just take it for what it's worth.

Sauce:
1 tablespoon corn starch
1/2 cup orange juice
1/4 cup honey
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp red pepper flakes

Mix all that together in some sort of container and set it aside

Chicken:
1 chicken breast (cut up in smallerish pieces)
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp ground ginger

Mix together breading things and dredge that chicken. I then deep fried the chicken... but cook it however you so desire. I'm just taking advantage of the opportunity I have to deep fry and cook with cream while wifey is supposed to be gaining a little weight. After cooking, throw into frying pan (wok) that will be used for the final cook it all together part.

Vegetables (steam them up) (You can use whatever vegetables you want... here's what I used)
1 cup snow peas
1 cup carrots
1 cup broccoli

3 stalks green onion--chopped (don't steam this, just throw it raw into wok)

Then throw your vegetables and your chicken in some big wok sort of thing, pour sauce over and let sauce boil for about 2 minutes (thicken it up)

During all of this, you should cook some rice to put it all over and chop up some cashews.

Assemblage
1. rice on plate
2. sauce/chicken/vegetable on top
3. sprinkle on some cashews

Eat

A note from your friendly neighborhood tax man....

2010-03-26T22:47:00.000-07:00

If you sold stock during the year.... along with telling me that you sold it... I'd really like to know how much you sold it for.... and maybe when you bought it and how much it cost you.

If you're an American citizen on a foreign assignment and plan on taking the foreign earned income exclusion (and if you can exclude income... well you should) and I send you a travel/work calendar with a little note on top asking you to fill out every single month... and you send me it back with September not filled out... I'm going to have to e-mail you again. And I promise it will be more trouble than if you had just filled it out to begin with.

If you rented your house while on your foreign assignment, I'd like to know how much people paid you to live there... and maybe how much you paid for the house originally and all that stuff. It could be nice.

If you live in Utah, your vehicle property taxes aren't deductible. Please don't express your frustration over this with me, talk to the antique dealers who decided that vehicle property taxes should be based on age and not on value in this state. Other states aren't doing it... guess we're just a peculiar people.

If you received any form in the mail during the year with a number on it... particularly one like w-2 or 1099.... maybe you could pass that along. The 1099 ones are the best... they're really useful... while a hodge podge of your monthly statements isn't so useful especially if you're not going to send all 12 of them anyways.

If you're going to send me a big folder of random receipts from McDonalds, Walmart, or Home Depot, maybe you could give me some sort of indication about why you think your big mac or grey poupon honey mustard receipt relates to your taxes.

If you're going to decide the following day that your life will be better if your child isn't counted as your dependent, maybe don't spend all of today trying to convince me that he is your dependent. Did you know that legally if someone could take you as their dependent, whether or not they do, you can't claim the exemption for yourself?... true story. I did research about it.

Last suggestion, watch "Stranger than Fiction"... it will warm your heart. "Why don't you come over hear and whisper some more of that tax talk in my ear that I like so much..."
It is my new favorite movie... a tax man... a baker... and Emma Thompson... doesn't get much better.

Grandma could die....

2010-02-18T12:11:00.000-08:00

and now I know that I would be okay. I'm not saying that she should die... I'd still be ridiculously sad, but now I feel like I could continue on without throwing myself into the hole with her in a very "Hunchback of Notre Dame"-esque kind of scene.

Throughout my life, there has not been any food more comforting to me than Grandma soup. I looked forward to it at Grandma parties, yelled at my wife when she was making us late to an occasion to eat it, and always asked Grandma to make me some for my birthday instead of the standard chocolate pie that she would make for other grandkids. I love me that soup.

I've lived the last few years (ever since I began to understand the reality of death) in fear that something would happen to her and that I would never get the soup again. My mom has always tried to make it.... but let's be honest... my mom's is ummm... how do I say this.... ummmm.... not good. It's just not very good.

Grandma has given me the recipe several times... I asked for it probably 10 times on my mission. And I've tried. I've tried hard to create the Grandma soup, and each time after tasting and not being filled with comfort and love, I've went back and begged for the secret again. She's related it to me again and again. Each time I've picked up some new hint... but it's still never been perfect. I knew that Grandma wouldn't be keeping anything from me... so I had resigned myself to the fact that the secret ingredient must just be the Grandma love that she put into it; therefore, I would never be able to recreate it.

But I made some last night for my lunch today. I have to be honest, going into the cafeteria, I was dreading the fact that I had even attempted it again. Last week I had brocoli soup from the cafeteria, and it was honestly the worst food experience of my life. At least the worst experience that wasn't my stomach's fault. It tasted so revolting, it gave me heartburn, and I spent the next day and a half trying to vomit it up completely. As I heated my soup up, the flashbacks to the week before were horrific. I couldn't handle eating subpar brocoli soup in this cafeteria again.

But I ate... and I was in heaven. I have finally succeeded in making the soup. As I ate, I transported myself to Grandma's kitchen. It was so comforting, so wonderful. There are those who don't understand the ecstasy that is eating, aka my old roommate, and I feel sorry for them.

Then because joy loves company, I went into the cafeteria and got me some frozen yogurt--chocolate-vanilla twist with m&m's, butterfinger crumbles, almond slivers, pecans, and caramel sauce--and went and sat close by the cute piano player man who coated my ice cream with show tunes.

I am now comforted to know that when Grandma has gone to that happier place--because she will be sainted... that's not really in question, I will be able to make the soup for the family gatherings and for my birthday and for any other time I want joy. And then if and when I get to that happier place, I won't always be bugging Grandma for soup. But I'll still ask for it from time to time, because, honestly, there's nothing better than Grandma lovin'.

Curse you avocado!

2010-02-14T13:43:00.000-08:00

Over the last couple of days, I have made two of the most delicious things that I have ever eaten. And I was super proud because they both appeared to be really very healthy for you.
The first was Avocado Chicken Stir-Fry. It was really good.

Then today, for my special Valentine's day special, I made California Chicken and served it alongside a salad and steamed asparagus in an attempt to make the most delicious, nutritious meal ever. As the first reviewer recommended, I marinated the chicken in lime juice, olive oil, cilantro, and garlic before heading off to church this morning. I would also recommend this. It imparted such a wonderful flavor. This whole meal was SO good. We were making all sorts of climatic sounds while eating it. And we were so proud for eating so many vegetables.

But then it came time to put it into weight watchers. Did you know that one avocado is 9.5 points? As a little reference for y'all... did you know that you can eat 1 junior bacon cheeseburger for 7 points, a snickers bar for 7 points, 3 tbs of regular butter for 9 points, or 40... count them, 40 frooties for 9 points. Avocado... what is it about you that makes you so evil? Why? Avocado... come to the pure side... oh please!

Overheard on the elevator here in the COB

2010-02-11T06:52:00.000-08:00

"I'm going to see if we can get you into zion, you'll be much happier."

--I think they were talking about some computer package. Because I heard the word adobe in the next sentence. Or I guess they could've been talking about houses made out of adobe as well.

Product Diversification

2010-02-09T20:08:00.001-08:00

So on the way home, I noticed that Low Book Sales is advertising tax preparation services. Weird!

My internship... or You're taking away the caffeine and the sugar?

2010-02-06T13:45:00.000-08:00

For those of you who don't know, I started an internship three weeks ago. I'm working in the LDS church office building doing taxes for expatriates (people who work for the church but who are doing so outside of the country--don't feel dumb if you didn't know that. When I was offered the job, I had to look it up). Expatriate really is such a cruel sounding word... almost like they were beheaded for treason or something like that.

I'm really enjoying it. After two weeks of training and prep work, I did my first real return Friday. We'll get the review notes someday from my supervisor and see how it all went over.

It's a really great internship with a few pros and cons as all things have.

Pros:

I get to do taxes!
I have an amazing work environment (good and churchy).
I'm always allowed and expected to leave at 5.
I don't have to deal with the standard receptionist sorts of stuff like having to talk to people.
I get lots of commuting time to listen to recorded books and sleep and stuff.
They have a crushed ice machine (so it's basically like having the benefits of being a hospital patient without having to be prodded).
They sell creamery chocolate milk for cheaper than they do at BYU.
I'm learning lots of stuff--I'm totally going to be the king of forms 2555 and 1116.

Cons:

I no longer sit at the reception desk which means that nobody randomly comes up and puts candy on my desk.
Lack of Dr. Pepper! They do have caffeine-free stuff in the vending machine. I tried to buy some the other day... and not only did it come out caffeine-free but diet! To which I exclaim, "You're taking away my caffeine and my sugar????"
I spend three hours (or 12.5%) of my day on a bus. And I have to keep my eyes closed the whole time or I get sick.
I find that the people who perform recorded books generally annoy me. Particularly the British guy who seems to have done lots of Agatha Christie books and the girl who reads Twilight. Granted, I accept that it wouldn't make sense to have a not-annoying voice read twilight to you. I did think that the Da Vinci code guy was really good though--he did all sorts of accents... and I don't remember feeling annoyed or ever having a hard time understanding.
I work on the 22nd floor and elevators make me sicker than buses even.
My dress standards are like the MTC... you don't have to wear a suit coat if nobody will see you... but if you're going to leave the cubicle... it must be worn... and I've yet to have a presiding authority approach me in the cafeteria to tell me that I'm allowed to take it off.

Not that I'm necessarily expecting it, but if they did offer me a job after this, do you think they would mind if I snuck some real Dr. Pepper into my cubicle?

Long awaited Boeuf Bourguignon!

2010-02-05T12:57:00.000-08:00

Wowsers! I'm really bad at posting. I actually cooked this thing several weeks ago and just haven't gotten around to writing about it. Hopefully none of your happiness is dependent on whether I write or not... cause then I would feel way guilty!

Well... on with the recipe as it's a long one. The recipe itself can be found here. This way if there is any copyright breaking going on, it will be on Oprah's head and not on mine. She's got a lot more money than me in case of a lawsuit.

Now hopefully, I can remember what was going on in all these pictures. I promise to try to be better about this writing thing. So first, I chopped up some bacon.

Here's the lovely bacon... feeling all chopped.
But before, I got home to the bacon, I had to acquire some of this. A nice red wine... Chianti, just like Julia said. Obtaining this was a little more complicated that some of you might think. People outside of Utah don't seem to understand this, but you can't buy wine in grocery stores here. You have to go to the udderly sinful state liquor store. I'd never been into a liquor store before. I frequented the first bar of my life just a few weeks ago. So I'm kind of new to this whole thing, and I didn't want to appear too awkward when I got there, so I looked on their website and everything was very well organized. You went to wine, then red, then other red, and then there was Chianti. Unfortunately, the store wasn't quite that orderly. There was just aisles of wine in the middle. There was probably some sort of order... but I didn't see the pattern. But luckily, I found some chianti eventually... and I bought it. There were actually a lot of people there. I didn't know there were so many people in Utah Valley buying wine at 1pm on a Thursday. Then I looked all directions before leaving the store of sin. I don't think anyone saw me or anything. Then I panicked because I was so afraid that I might die on the ride home and my last act alive would be to buy wine. But don't worry... I survived all the way to walmart... and then I bought a few more things.
But anyways, back to the bacon. Then I blanched it because I decided that I was going to try to do everything that Julia told me too. This just means that you boil it for a little while I guess.
While it was doing that, I chopped me up some onions and carrots.
And then the bacon looked like this. Good and blanched I suppose. Mostly looked like uncooked bacon swimming around in fatty water.
Then I fried up that bacon and that oil.
And I dried the meat... because if you don't, the meat won't brown properly. I know you think I'm not listening Julia... but I am! I absolutely am!
Then I got the meat a-frying in the bacon grease and oil stuff.
And then I moved on to this beauty. Now there are a few things that I have approached in my life absolutely unprepared. I have good parents, but they weren't always the best on educating me on the finer things of life. So... I was absolutely unprepared for a few of the changes in life.... leading to some embarrassment... like the fact that teenage boys are supposed to wear deodorant, that whole wedding night thing, and my first wine bottle. I clumsily used some scissors to get that red thing off.
And then I found something that I was totally unprepared for. A CORK!!!!! I wasn't expecting this... Martinelli's don't have corks..
So I had to call in my underage sister to bring down her pocket knife collection. The first pocket knife snapped right in two while she was working on it. So she had to pry that one out with a pair of pliers. This took a very long time. All the while the meat was browning away... turned to very, very low heat to hopefully buy me some time.
Here we are with the second pocket knife.
I got the meat off of the stove and started cooking the onions and the carrots. When miraculously....
This happened!!!!!!
Also while all that was going on. I did the whole meat/flour shaking cooking thing. And then I put it all together in the pot and cooked it for awhile. Like 2 and 1/2 hours. I also sauteed some mushrooms in there, but obviously didn't take a picture.
Then I took it out... Boiled it and basted it with the mushrooms involved. Then I ate it... and it was very good. I was a little skeptical... because the wine cooking made our kitchen smell really quite gross in my professional opinion. But the finished product did make me go really yum... I didn't really know what pearl onions were, so I just left those out. But other than that, I mostly listened to Julia with every silly little step. Hope you enjoyed! If anyone else close by wants to try... I still have a half bottle of wine in my cupboard that I don't really know what to do with... maybe some coq au vin.

Man food (my introduction into food blogging)

2010-01-25T19:16:00.000-08:00

I've been wanting to try out this food blogging thing for a long time now--basically ever since I fell in love with pioneer woman. Then of course there was the whole Julie/Julia thing. It's like the first fad that I was at least semi-capable of participating in. So, a week ago last Thursday, I borrowed my sister's camera because my camera doesn't do close up shots... like at all. Her's isn't spectacular, but hopefully it will give you a feel for it all.

Then I spent the next 5 hours in the kitchen to bring you the following three part series: 1. Frito Pie, 2. Boeuf Bourguignon, and 3. Gateau chocolat aux amandes.

Today, you get Frito pie. My good buddy Jon taught me all about this one when he noticed that I needed some man food introduced into my life. I started with this one because I was still smarting from the day before when some guy in the gold's gym locker room called me a fag.... so many junior high flash backs. I dedicate this post to that guy... whoever he may be. Bring on the man food!

But first my moldy countertop... because mold is also manly.

You'll need frito's (or cheap wanna-bes), salsa, chili, and pepper jack cheese. Does anyone else have major psychological concerns about Walmart's new packaging? I'll talk more about my very poignant feelings about in a later post.

First, spend five minutes searching for your good can opener. Then give up and try to open the chili with your bad can opener. Then swear, and find the good one to help you finish the job. Or even better, just get chili with a pop top.

Then pour the chili, salsa, and ripped up cheese pieces (in whichever quantities make you want to grunt) into a pan.

Heat it, stir it, watch it become one conglomerated whole.

Pour it over fritos on a plate... and EAT IT!

Check back soon for details about the rest of that sinful thursday afternoon which was spent having an affair of sorts with Julia Child.

The most spoiled generation

2010-01-25T19:12:00.000-08:00

Have you ever noticed the Hershy's miniature phenomenon? You know, the one where at the end, there's a lot of milk chocolate ones left? Honestly, what does that say about our generation that we turn our noses up at chocolate if it doesn't have something else with it? I mean, it's still chocolate right? Chocolate=good (particularly among females yes)?

Victory!

2009-12-11T10:49:00.001-08:00

Hello my name is Brennan....

Hello Brennan

I walked into Walmart last night at approximately 10:07 pm with the goal of buying a package of eggs and two lemons. I left walmart a few minutes later having only bought a package of eggs and two lemons.

Wild applause!

[tearing up] Thanks guys.... I could never have the power to resist temptation without the strength I get from y'all.

Kid-friendly?

2009-11-23T21:55:00.000-08:00

Sometimes allrecipes.com lets you down, and it's rough for everyone involved. Tonight, I was browsing through the kid-friendly recipe section when I found this listed as the #3 favorite kids recipe. Maybe times have changed since I was a kid.... but back when I was a youngun'--walking up hill to school both ways and the crossing guard was frozen solid so we had to push the nerdy kids into the street to stop traffic--it was so not cool to eat spinach, sundried tomato, pesto, and jalepeno peppers.

Pepperoni was the definition of cool. Kids today... they must not understand what we used to.

When the kids grow up and move out :(

2009-11-23T21:28:00.000-08:00

I created a little friend about 4 months ago, and now he is feeling all grown up and is almost ready to leave the nest. I wasn't quite ready to say goodbye, but the original little red headed girl--the one before That Girl came into my life--has decided that she impatiently wants a child of her own without any of the wait. So tonight, I took my little friend and divided him into two pieces like Solomon and shoved him into two mason jars which I stole from my mother. Don't tell her.

I'm giving away half of my pet... Sometimes things grow up and need to move on. But luckily sourdough starter is like that. It can grow and divide and be given to friends, and still leave you with a complete child. And then it's like all the little red headed girls in your life can have a piece of you, and your legacy is living all over the world. So this is what it means to be a father.

Small talk

2009-11-18T11:52:00.000-08:00

I'm not a big fan of small talk--unfortunately this is the main reason that I've struggled to find an internship this semester (A businessman's ability to talk is much more respected than a businessman's ability to work).

In any case... I just don't understand people who try to make small talk with people in secretarial positions. When I answer the phone at work, I really just want you to tell me who you want to talk to so I can transfer you there and return to whatever silly task I might have been doing.

Twice today I've had calls where people ask me how I'm doing and then proceed to make small talk. One of which went on for such an awkward length of time that I eventually had to ask him what I could do to help him. The other one was nice... but my mind was like, "I don't have any idea who you are... I don't know exactly why you're telling me about traffic strikes in New York or your thanksgiving plans.... ummm... who do you want to talk to?" Luckily, this one told me before I had to ask.

Would life really be that bad if we just lived in a world without small talk? Is there anyone else who is as afraid of it as I am?

A hard day at the Wal-marts

2009-11-17T17:51:00.000-08:00

Today at the end of my trip to our good and neighborly wal-mart, I made the decision to go through the self check-out line as I had things like blush, girl deodorant, caffeinated soda and stuff. I knew that I had a lot of items... I knew that it would be an awkward, difficult process... but I did it anyways. It wasn't too crowded, so I didn't worry too much about people being angry at me. However, it was only a matter of seconds before 4 people were lined up behind me.

The first tragedy was with the yams. No... yams do not have stickers or barcodes on them. No... yams are not listed under y for yams or s for sweet potatoes. They are awkwardly listed under potatoes, sweet--which makes SO much sense.

Eventually after lots of minutes, I got to the part where I needed to scan in my coupon so I could save 50 cents on the aforementioned feminine deodorant. When it didn't appear to work... I tried to forget about saving money and to pay for my purchases. But because I had scanned in the coupon, it would not let me forget. I then had to find a cashier (a hard task at Wal-Mart) to approve my coupon so I could leave.

15 minutes after beginning to stand in the line, the poor woman after me was able to purchase her dozen donuts.

I headed for the door only to hear sirens--sirens alerting me that I was under suspicion for shoplifting. The little helper lady came to inspect my overly full shopping cart. I informed her that there were no electronics... mostly just groceries. She glanced over my receipt, and then with a smile far too awkward and a blush far too pink, she said, "I know what it is." Then her eyes proceeded to scan themselves over me. I haven't been checked out very many times in my life, but I've checked out enough people over the years to know what was going on. I knew instantly that the lubricant, that I had so carefully tried to not draw attention to, had betrayed me.

I got myself hence.

Google analytics is as unsatisfying as the devil...

2009-11-17T11:38:00.000-08:00

I go to google analytics to gain knowledge about my blog.... I leave google analytics with more questions than I went in with. India? Michigan? Why doesn't any one in all of Canada care? Why is the average time spent on my blog 0:00? Who is googling the phrase "Brennan blog"? Google analytics calls me in like a piece of string cheese and then leaves me answerless.

Another really good question... why does blogger not recognize the words "google" or "analytics" as being spelled correctly?

The illusive letter 'y'

2009-11-17T11:26:00.000-08:00

Do you ever worry that your major of study is destroying your ability to function in every day society. Today I needed to type the word Inventor on something.... After I submitted it, I realized that I had instead typed the word inventory....

Accounting is taking over every facet of my life! Any good support groups out there?

My pioneer trek

2009-11-11T20:12:00.000-08:00

Those of you closest to me perhaps know that I am slightly obsessed (give 'er take a few levels of obsessiveness) with the blog pioneerwoman.blogspot.com. Well, recently The Pioneer Woman came out with her very own cookbook and went on a book signing tour. She made a stop over in Salt Lake City, so I figured that it was worth the trek to meet my hero. I knew that lots of people checked her blog... but I didn't figure that most people were as obsessed as I was. I just figured there would be a cute little cowgirl at a table surrounded by books and maybe 3 people.

We arrived in sugarhouse and found the streets lined with cars. We eventually found a slightly illegal place to park (a little close to the stop sign if you know what I mean) about 4 blocks away from the bookstore. As we approached the bookstore, we were inhaled into a mob of middle-aged relatively-larger women. Most of the women were struggling to carry their seven cookbooks. The mob was pressing and milling around the small bookstore. I heard some woman say that they had run out of cookbooks and that she was only going to have time to see the people with tickets. Tickets!? Who is this woman?

So... we left. It was a very sad end to my trek. It probably kind of felt like the people who went to Zion's camp excited for some blood and then were told to go back.... bloodless, cookbook less and happyless :(

Veteran's Day

2009-11-11T19:40:00.000-08:00

In Quebec, during my missionary days, Veteran's Day was a really big deal. It was considered practically criminal to not wear the little felt poppy that they gave out at Wal-Mart for the preceding week. There were parades and fun ceremonies. I wouldn't normally describe Canadians as being particularly patriotic, but in this case they totally win.

Back in Utah, I tend to only think of veteran's day as a day with no mail. 5 years ago on veteran's day, I was substitute teaching 1st grade in West Provo. I knew that it was the day when my mission call should be coming. I could hardly keep my excitement under control. I nervously built things with blocks while the kids were at PE (at which point the principal walked in on my... but that's another story entirely), I danced around the classroom with the kids while we were supposed to be talking about the weather or something, and I think I accidentally taught them that 70 comes after 50 when counting by tens. I finally got home... so anxious for the envelope. But of course, while the school district wasn't holidayizing, the postal service was... there was no envelope.

Today was a fairly normal day at school and work. I learned about selling cold medicine in marketing and something about total wealth leverage in finance. I came home and did homework. Then I decided that it was time to do the dishes. I can't do dishes without watching a movie on my laptop at the same time.... I just can't. So, I went upstairs to ask if anybody had gotten the day's netflix movie out of the mail. I anxiously waited for them to find the key, I latched up the dog, and began the journey to the mailbox. I felt around the mailbox several times--so confused by its empty state. Veterans day has trifled with me again! In honor of the veterans, I have decided to not do the dishes and to write on my blog instead!

Yay veterans!

WIC: The destroyer of euphoria

2009-08-06T14:32:00.000-07:00

I'm addicted to grocery shopping... but you probably already knew this. It's probably one of my more expensive, yet productive addictions. I mean... we all need food right.

Well, we recently moved and I was given a chance to remember how wonderful grocery shopping really is. I was given the chance to become one with a mostly undiscovered Macey's. There were a few things that were planned to be bought--and I mostly stuck to this. However, most of the time was spent in awe and discovery, wandering up and down every single aisle. It was probably the most relief I have felt in awhile now.

Then I even found myself in a good short line. But euphoria was soon to end as the person in front of me proceeded to check out in 4 separate transactions with WIC vouchers. Now, I'm a supporter of such things... don't get me wrong. But I was just in such a euphoric state and to be dislodged from such a state can be a little jarring on one's well being. And WIC can be so confusing... apparently (at least for this lady) you have to buy 5 bottles of meat baby food to 10 bottles of fruit/vegetable. And you get the bigger bottles of the veggies.... but small for meat.

Let's just say I was jarred into the real world a little quicker than would have been desirable.

Lemon pasta - a la moi!

2009-07-23T10:50:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I had a recipe posted as my g-mail status that I hadn't even tried yet. The main reason I had it as my status was that I wanted a quick way to find the link again for when I did try to make it. Unfortunately, people tried it and didn't really love it, so I cooked it one night and made quite a few changes to the recipe. Below is what I ended up with... and I would recommend this... It's absolutely sublime! Please note: I don't really measure, so everything below outside of the one lemon and the 2 cloves garlic is an estimate.... don't feel tied to it. Note 2: I also throw some additional lemon juice in there as I go...

3 cups pasta
2 cups sour cream
2 cloves garlic
2 tbs olive oil
1/4 cup margarine
1 lemon
1/4 cup white wine (I used cooking wine... pretty sure you could leave it out... it just makes me feel fancier!)
1 tbs basil
1 tsp Lemon pepper
1 chicken breast
1/4 cup Grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup Grated mozzarella cheese
1 tbs parsley
1/2 cup spinach leaves, torn
Directions
1. At some point in the process, cook the pasta (leave it al dente as it will be baked later) and the chicken (seasoned with the lemon pepper--again leave it a little uncooked as it will be baked later).
2. Melt margarine with the olive oil in a skillet.
3. Add the minced garlic cloves, white wine, basil, sour cream, zest of one lemon, and the juice of half the lemon (add more lemon juice throughout as desired).
4. Bring the mixture to a boil stirring constantly
5. Turn off heat and mix pasta into sauce
6. Lay out partially cooked chicken in the bottom of a casserole dish
7. Spoon pasta and sauce over the chicken
8. Cover with foil and bake at 375 for 15 minutes
9. Uncover, add cheeses, parsley, torn spinach leaves, and rest of lemon juice.
10. Bake for 10 more minutes

Anonymous?

2009-07-07T09:58:00.000-07:00

The first letter that Amy and I received as an almost married couple was a puzzling one. A card of congratulations came with no writing on the inside and no return address. It was a nice gesture, but not one that I knew what to do with. There was no one to thank and no reason to keep the card. Without the story of knowing who it came from, it was just a blank card that we could've bought from the store had we really felt the need for a blank congratulations card.

I feel similarly when I receive an anonymous comment on a blog. They're not bad things... I just don't know what to do with them. Thus far, through anonymous comments, I have been told that my wife would be happier with a heterosexual paraplegic than me, that I treat my wife like a laundry basket, and now that I should just chillax when I make mistakes and realize that no one cares. The last one would be no big deal, just a nice piece of advice, if it weren't anonymous.

The thought process that goes on behind an anonymous comment seems to be something stressful like this, "There's an important thing that this person needs to know, but it's just slightly controversial enough that if I were to attach my persona to it....." Then one can imagine the internal battle that goes on, "Should I post it? Would it be bad to sign my name to it? Yes, it would be bad... I shouldn't post it. But it needs to be said, so here goes. Gotta go anonymous, I ain't got any other choice."

I feel kinda bad knowing that I caused such stress. I really don't mean to. Almost all of my posts on this blog are for comedic purposes only--yes, I know that they're not really funny, but you're the one who is deciding to read them after all.

Grammar mistakes

2009-07-06T14:30:00.000-07:00

I tend to make a lot of mistakes in my writing/typing. I know this.... so I generally try to give things a looking over before I push buttons like "send" or "publish." However, it's not uncommon for me to be looking over something long after the initial posting and to find rather embarrassing mistakes (like your/you're or there/their/they're or I have went) .

Granted, I was raised by Cartwrights--so quite frankly, I think we should all just be pretty impressed that I can formulate a coherent sentence with punctuation, both upper and lower case letters, and verbs. However, there are highly intellectual people who read my blog--including like the most intellectual family in the world almost. And sometimes I even leave mistakes in my comments on their blogs. I'm sure even the thought of an error on their personal website makes them want to vomit as plain cream of mushroom soup does for me.

Yet... I'm never sure what to do when I discover these errors. The options as I see them are:
1. Leave everything as is. Hope that no one has noticed or will notice in the future. If they do notice, hope that they won't judge you.

2. Post another comment acknowledging that you know that what you did was wrong. This helps you look a little less stupid, but it also acknowledges to the world that you made a mistake. You lose the pleasantness of #1 where you can believe that maybe they just didn't notice. And this is putting another blemish on their blog.

3. Delete the post. This option doesn't serve my selfish self very well. While I want them to not notice the error, I also want them to read the witty thing that I wrote. In addition, blogger leaves a little note that says, "This message has been deleted by author." So they'll know forever that you deleted it.... and then they might wonder why.

4. Delete the post and rewrite it. This works if you catch the mistake quickly. But if you're too late, you will lose your spot in the list of comments, and your comment will likely no longer make sense at the end of the list of comments. Again, there will be a "deleted post" to remind them of your stupidity.

5. Hire a personal editor so that this doesn't happen in the future.

6. Stop writing altogether.

The usefulness of limits

2009-07-01T11:47:00.001-07:00

First off, I would consider myself an ungrateful bum, if I did not get up here and publicly express my love of the sunflower market. You can buy so many fruits and vegetables. And if it floats your boat to pay high prices for silly looking things, they also have a wide variety of organic-ness and other forms of hippie foods. And the best part, in order to preserve the rain forest, the receipts are printed double sided!

This last week, they had a sale on raspberries--88 cents a container! As I was loading up on so much fun fruit, I was alarmed to see that raspberries were being limited to 3 containers per customer because of excess rain! Alas. Granted, I probably wouldn't have bought more than 3 anyways, but here they were, brazenly restricting my freedoms and my right to buy as many raspberries as I wanted. I decided, out of respect for starving children of Utah valley, that I would only buy 2. I bought, we ate, then the next day we had to drive back to get more.

Of course, the sign was still there, inhibiting our happiness. But we weren't going to let any sign limit us! We each grabbed three, pretended like we didn't know the other... grabbed a few other goodies... and headed to separate check out lines....

Now honestly, would have we really bought 8 packages of raspberries had we not felt limited in our abilities to do so? I think not, but the world will never know. Part of me wonders if their plan is to actually try to get you to buy more....

36,000 Steps

2009-07-01T08:51:00.000-07:00

In church on sunday, there was a talk given about how muscle memory required 36,000 repetitions. I think the point of the talk was that even though church is repetitive... you need to go 36,000 times so that your spiritual muscles could remember what they were supposed to be doing. Anyways... so I'm not there yet.

All this talk of muscle memory helped me to renew my commitment to learning how to walk like a normal human being. You know--starting with the heel and moving on to the toe. The walk I currently do has been described as everything from fairy to raptor (quite frankly, I think it's pretty cool that I have a walk that is so versatile).

I've been trying to think about it every step for the last few days--I've missed a few (which probably means that I need like 40,000 steps or something to make up for the anti-reinforcement).

I'm a little confused when it comes to stairs. With stairs is it okay to start with the toe... or at least be kind of flat footed (Usually the heel isn't even touching the stair right)? Or do normal people still fall on the back of their foot first and then roll forward? And then walking down stairs is a whole 'nother question. So all of you people who walk mostly normal like, would you go do a little bit of stair experimentation and get back to me? I would hate to work hard to walk right and then find out that I was still doing it wrong--just a different kind of wrong.

Recycling

2009-06-25T07:36:00.000-07:00

I remember being somewhere in elementary school and learning that one could get money for collecting/recycling aluminum cans. Me and my best buddies were super excited. We'd always been looking for ways to get rich, and now we had found one that we could do on our walk home. We began on our journey, collecting cans and discussing the super nintendo games that we would be able to buy. We filled a garbage bag and then presented them to our mothers in an effort to obtain the secret knowledge that was needed to turn this bag into electronic games. The moms agreed to take care of it. We went along life waiting for the gold to roll in. After having nearly forgotten about it, we found our bag of treasure in the garbage can.

Why would our mother's do this? Probably because recycling in Utah is hard.

But Amy and I have found a way around this hardness. Two nights past, at around 9:30pm, I found myself sneaking a box of paper down the unloading dock of the ASB. The coast was clear. The blinds looking into the janitor's office from the dock were left open. I saw light and presumed that I was going to have to vacate my secret plan. I crept up and looked over the dock; to my relief the room was empty... if only temporarily. I didn't feel like I had the time to do much sorting, so I dumped it all in the mixed-paper bin, rescuing only the pieces of cardboard and depositing them elsewhere. I got away--how close was my call, I do not know.

I only feel slightly guilty about my illegal recycling. We pay tuition after all...and don't the ends justify the means?

Adjective of the day

2009-06-24T15:06:00.000-07:00

My frozen dinner box has just informed me that it is not only microwavable but it is ovenable as well....

Are you ovenable?

Ripped from manhood prime!

2009-06-23T09:33:00.000-07:00

This weekend marked the celebration of my one year anniversary! And boy do I have some stories to share from it. I always figured that anniversaries are filled with events that make a husband feel manlier... most of these stories have just increased my ability to be mocked by my wife. But Xister has kindly pointed out to me that acting in a "stupid" manner totally makes one way more manly. So whichever way you want to take it, give a round of applause for the upcoming stories that will illustrate manhood being poured either out of me or into me.

My Identity Expired
We drove down to St. George to spend the weekend. We took turns driving down so that the drive wouldn't be arduous. Upon checking into our hotel, the concierge asked for id, so I proceeded to pull out my driver's license. My wife, in her normally chatty way, started chattering on about how I still had a little boy driver's license and asked when i would get my sideways license for all the drinking that we do and stuff. The concierge got very stern and questioningly reminded me, "You shouldn't be drinking and driving, it's bad for you." I mumbled that I knew and then he proceeded to inform me that my license was no good (expired three months ago) and that we couldn't check in without a valid id. Amy ran out to the car to get her license so that we could get a key. While we were waiting, instead of helping the two customers behind me, he continued to lecture me about how I had ruined our life (you're going to have to take a new drivers test, pass another closed book test, pay massive fees, somehow deal with the fact that your insurance is now faulty... on and on). We eventually got checked in. But I spent the weekend without the ability to drive and with no identity--how unmanly is that.

FYI: getting my license renewed was no different than getting it renewed before it had expired. There wasn't even so much as a peep at the DMV about me letting it lapse.

Forgetting clothes
We had made plans to go to the temple. I had brought everything with me to do so except for a tie to complete the 'sunday best' attire.
Fortunately: there was a DI near our hotel
Unfortunately: we drove around far too much before we found it
Fortunately: we got there and I found ties quickly
Unfortunately: the one I bought was kind of short
Fortunately: You take it off once you get into the temple anyways

Suicidal French Fry
After the temple, we decided to try this In-N-Out thing for shakes and french fries... I wasn't really a fan of the french fries. And one of them, after being dipped in ketchup, wanted so much to avoid fulfilling his purpose of being eaten, that he jumped from my hand and into my pocket.... so picture me with a tie that is too short and ketchup in my pocket.

The aggressively-trained rabid squirrel
In Zion's National Park, they use scare tactics to get you to avoid feeding squirrels. There's a picture in the map of a hand that has been brutally mutilated by little squirrel teeth. I was definitely sufficiently scared. I think they're less concerned about the squirrels receiving food and more concerned about the squirrels learning poor behavior. Well, we encountered a squirrel that had most definitely learned some inappropriate behavior. He kept scurrying up to us to investigate our food supply. He even went so far as to attempt to jump into our little cooler. I, of course, squealed and got out of the way. Amy threw a water bottle at his direction hoping that the noise would scare him away. He was undeterred. She then knocked his noggin' with our bottle of sunscreen. He stood dazed a moment, but then continued to attack the cooler. We bundled up everything in our arms and ran away. He eventually lost interest in us and went to jump into someone else's jar of nutella.

Our anniversary continued in such a pattern... including me getting us very lost a few times. Google map's directions to the St. George Olive Garden lead you right into a residential cul-de-sac... FYI.

So... Amy drove all the way home... and then we defrosted (in the unfroze sort of way) our wedding cake top... ate some of it... defrosted it literally (like try to cut the frosting off) and then attempted to feed the rest to the ducks. Word to the wise: frosting sinks... cake floats.... the adolescent looking duckies seem to enjoy the sugar!

Who are you? Part Deux--r

2009-06-23T08:56:00.000-07:00

This story actually came to pass awhile ago.... and I'm surprised that I never wrote about it, so here we go. Remember how I didn't really remember who was sleeping next to me the night that my wife got back from tour? Well... the day after... the amnesia continued its spread as she failed to recognize me.

She was quite bad at working to overcome this jet lag thing... so most sleeping was done from about 5-7 each evening. I came into our room one of these times in an attempt to wake her up (to allow for sleeping during the actual nighttime). She woke up slightly and proceeded to freak out at who this was waking her up. She repeatedly said, "This is indecent. What are you doing in a married woman's room." I tried to tell her that everything was okay and continue to rouse her into an awaken state. She then uncovered her face, puckered her lips and proceeded to tell me that I could kiss her. I went ahead and did so--presuming that she was awake enough at this point to know who I was. However, after her babbling for a bit later, it was clear that she wasn't.

She later informed me that she thought she was at a party with a bunch of people from BYU singers. And that in her memories of the moment, it was clear that I had not been there (in the dream sense). So... we know that my wife does remember that she's married, but at the same time feels no qualms about kissing some random boy from singers. The questions as I see them are (1) who did she think that I was and (2) how many people in singers kissed her while she was sleeping on the bus throughout tour--or at least how many people did she pucker her lips to...

GRRRR Key Office!

2009-06-04T13:47:00.000-07:00

Today was the day to pick up the mailbox keys for my work. I was so excited today to get to take a walk outside of the office to pick it up. I made a trip over there and they informed to that the signature we had on there, BYU's associate academic vice president, was not authorized. I was like, "But he's the most important man ever... he sits on the stand at devotionals." But they said that it wouldn't work because he wasn't "of" the library. I tried to explain that our office really wasn't "of" the library either and that we reported to the VP previously mentioned. But they countered back that the mailboxes were "of" the library.

I walked back to the library and got the dean of the library's signature. He wasn't on their list either. They didn't have any logical arguments for this one... it just wouldn't work. I walked back to the library and got the dean's secretary's signature--this they accepted.

Ummm... do you think that they are just trying to be frustrating? Could it be that they send everyone on the run until the absolute moment of frustration and then they give you what you want? Am I no more than a play thing in their little game?

Alas!

I need a "Flag as inappropriate content" button

2009-06-03T12:10:00.000-07:00

So..... I love browsing through all recipes.com. Today, I came across this and I was so revolted that I had to stop.

Gross, gross, gross gross gross. I don't even like my bacon or eggs to touch the syrup during breakfast.... let alone become one in some sort of twisted cookie.

Don't they review these things before they stick them on there. And if they aren't going to review them then I say that they need to have a place where we, the users, can alert them of offensive content. I should not have to come across such things on the internet... and when I do... I should have a way to get rid of them!

Silly things that my wife has said in the last hour

2009-05-22T19:32:00.000-07:00

While cuddling, telling some story that started out making sense, and sort of falling asleep, "My husband and I were kissing, and then a priest walked into the room and was wearing the same clothes as my husband. And we yelled out, 'we're not in the brotherhood AHHHHHH' "

While handing me bubble wrap, "Will you help me pop some of this. I want to throw it away, but I think it's a shame to waste perfectly good bubble wrap"

Just barely: "Look at me, I'm tap dancing on bubble wrap, it's my new exercise. You should try it, it's much more fun"

Who are you?

2009-05-22T11:08:00.000-07:00

While in my earlier teenage years, my mom went to Europe for about a month. My youngest sister was just a youngun at the time. My mother was much saddened to come home and have said sister not really seem to recognize her. I warned my wife that I might not remember her when she came back, she just kind of laughed--little did she know.

I picked her up from the airport last night from her near month gallop in Europe, and we began our first night of re-learning how to share the bed. Mid-night sleeping Bran got a little confused--awake Bran only remembers jumping out of bed and feeling kind of scared. But apparently sleeping Bran noticed that there was a new found creature in his bed. Alarmed he jumped out of the bed, prepared for defense, and began a terrified inquisition, "Who are you? What are you doing here?" After successfully explaining who she was, I eventually laid back down to rest. And the rest of the night was spent without further alarm.

And thus we see that I do indeed adjust to changes in life fairly quickly, but be warned that my adjustment might be dangerous to you.

Terrible, Horrible, No-Good Smelly Evening

2009-05-21T08:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday after work, I started off my evening with great vigor. I had a long list of things I wanted to do to prepare for my wife's homecoming which will happen tonight. Yay! So I started off at Arby's where something bad must have happened. As I was walking back to my car, Anthony (my tummy) instantly rejected the meal, and I found myself vomiting all over hand and parking lot. I scrambled over to the grassy area next to the apartment building close by where some group from the single's ward watched me throw up all over their grass and my shoe. I cleaned off my hand as best as I could on the grass, and went along my journey.

I next found myself at DI where I hoped to find plaid shorts for my new cool self to wear to the airport. I found two pairs, to fit into one I should've weighed 100 lbs, and to look good in the other I would probably need at least 200 lbs. I'm not very good at guessing whether or not something will fit... so I tried both of them on. The 100 lb ones were an adventure. So, I left empty handed.

I scurried along to Bath and Body works so that our house could smell like honeymoon (Coconut Lime Verbena). But of course they wouldn't happen to have a dispenser in the same package as coconut lime verbena, so I was forced to buy a dispenser and a refill pack--which meant that I spent two dollars more than I was planning to... GRRRR. As I was walking out, I noticed the lotion tester for their new scent, white citrus. I went to remove the lid to experience this new excitement, and it kindly exploded a bit on me. I rubbed it all in as well as possible--so now I smelled like white citrus vomit.

Then I went home and excitedly started to put the wall flower together. Apparently whoever invented the wallflower wasn't raised properly--they obviously never learned the phrase, "righty-tighty, lefty loosee" because it was backwards. In my attempt to try to make it work--the right way--I spilled some of the fluid on myself. So now I smelled like coconut lime verbena, white citrus vomit.

I then went and washed my hands (Yes, I acknowledge that I probably should've done this before now, but I hadn't) with harvest peach soap.

Then I went to rehearsal still feeling very sick and smelling like harvest peach, coconut lime verbena, white citrus vomit. At rehearsal they made us lie on the floor and do some sort of relaxation-get into character activity..... which was anything but relaxing because quite frankly, I am an accountant and "my close my eyes and visualize" skills are very low!

Do you think this is a sign that my wife isn't supposed to come home? I wouldn't have swine flu, right? Arby's was just a little wrong???

What people have in their carts.

2009-05-06T14:21:00.000-07:00

The other day when I was taking a therapeutic trip to WalMart (yes, I am a grocery shopaholic), I was pondering about how very much we can know about a person and their current emotional state by what they buy. I saw a girl with a chick flick in hand browsing through the fancy cheese--obviously lonely and on her way home to drown her sorrows in an unrealistic French romantic world.

While at wal-mart the other day, I bought the following things:
Oil - 1040 (which luckily is the same name as one of my favorite forms so it was easy to remember)
Oil - Vegetable
A deep fryer
Yogurt
French toast sticks
garlic herb cheese
A variety of soda pop
slivered almonds

(I also looked at weights while I was there, but then I decided that they all looked so big and scary).

So clearly, anyone looking in my shopping cart could tell that that I am a lonely man who likes to cook, who wants to add more fat to his diet, who is uncomfortable with his masculinity and is therefore buying motor oil while not being able to resist the finer (feminine?) things of life like fancy cheeses.

Deep, huh?

You'll get used to it

2009-04-28T14:26:00.000-07:00

I've had a surprising lot of people tell me recently that "I'll get used to something or other." I think there's something to be said about a human's ability to adapt to his situation, but I don't know that life is just about becoming desensitized to every new situation. For example, Sister Hall (whom I adore, and I can hardly believe that I'm about to admit that something she said made me angry) said something to the effect of, "It's alright that your husband doesn't like that you're leaving him for a month here and there. He'll get used to it. My husband has." Almost as if any unpleasant thing could be justified under the antidote that it could become habitual and therefore less shocking.

Yeah... I suppose I'll get used to not having her around and living alone, but I don't know that this is necessarily a good thing. People also get used to prison, used to not having the spirit around them, used to the influence of drugs/pornography/or other addictions, used to abuse, etc. But no matter how accustomed they get, it's still not necessarily the best thing for them.

Anyways... just something I've been thinking about. Note: This isn't the only circumstance that has led to this thought. This was just the one that I thought was most fitting to write about. The other most common one has to do with hair, and if I wrote about hair, you would all probably tell me to get over it and that I would get used to it... just like everyone else.

Coming back

2009-04-23T11:48:00.001-07:00

I checked google analytics today, and I was surprised to see that there still seem to be a few people who check this blog. You're very loyal whoever you are... I've stopped going to my blog even. But that's going to stop. My blog will become a happening place to be again. I hope to be firm in this commitment.

Alas, I feel as if all of my entertaining juices have been stifled. I shake around my head seeing what I can find. I see interest rate swaps and other sorts of fun financial hedges, lease journal entries, and fair value models.... I see 1231 assets and 179 expense..... I see variances, transfer prices, and Activity-based costing systems.... And thanks to my wife talking me into such a silly class, I see lots of bickering marriage therapists who can't even stay married themselves.

But within a few days my brain should hopefully be cleared and funny again. There will be no school for the next few months... There will be no wife for the next 4 weeks. There should be nothing to distract me from this blog which is my life!

YAY! So tell your friends. This is going to be the place to be again, as it once was.

Evolution of a Broken Door (or proof that business students can't follow instructions)

2009-04-02T19:06:00.001-07:00

A few days ago, I noticed that the Tanner building door had a nice sign on it that said to please not use it. A day later, the door evolved to a new stage. The signs were still there; however, the door had been propped open so that nobody could use it. Today, the door was again closed with sign attached. The door had caution tape all around it and was blocked by all the recycling bins in the vicinity.

Doors must continually evolve to the level of direction-following ineptitude.

The same thing happened to a patch of grass that I used to love to cross. It started with a "please don't walk on me, I'm trying to grow" sign, which evolved into a full-fledged, uncrossable, roped-off area.

Browsing through Paula Dean

2009-03-29T19:22:00.000-07:00

We were waiting at the check out stand at Wal-Mart last night. In my boredom, I picked up Paula Dean's magazine--who, in the case you don't know, is a nicely rounded southern belle who makes yummy looking things on the food network. I turned to the "Ask Paula" section. I was so very excited to be enlightened with the gorgeous southern accent. The question was, "How do you make soup so it's not too salty." The answer: "The only way to make your soup less salty is to add more of the other ingredients that aren't salt."

Hmmm. Thanks Paula... Maybe I could have my own cooking magazine too.

Speaking of how I am a domestic Goddess... tonight I made a nice rosemary bread that tasted just like the bread from macaroni grill--and it was fantastic! We also had steak and aspargus as part of our very fancy sunday dinner. We also boiled ourselves an artichoke for our appetizer. How do I not have my own show? It's proposterous what we are setting forth as fine culinary wisdom these days! Tv these days!

Taxes!

2009-02-01T20:57:00.000-08:00

"People think taxation is a terribly mundane subject. But what makes it fascinating is that taxation, in reality, is life. If you know the position a person takes on taxes, you can tell their whole philosophy. The tax code, once you get to know it, embodies all the essence of life: greed, politics, power, goodness, charity. everything's in there. That's why it's so hard to get a simplified tax code. Life just isn't simple" - Sheldon Cohen, former IRS commissioner

I just finished doing my taxes. There is so much joy in my heart. Not only are we getting back a hefty refund, but I thoroughly enjoyed doing them. I think I've decided that I'm going to pursue the rest of my education in tax and then someday be a tax accountant. I feel like I have an identity now. I have a purpose. I will do taxes!

As well, I went and visited Deloitte's Salt Lake office on Friday, and I really liked the tax panel, they seemed way quirky, nerdy, and fun. The audit panel on the other hand seemed a little too cool for school with shaved heads and all. I just think that I would fit in a little better with the fun tax people.

SO, YAY, I have an identity--at least assuming that BYU lets me into their Macc of taxation. If I don't get in... maybe I'll still get a job with liberty tax and be the perky statue thing.

Showing school spirit

2009-01-02T18:55:00.000-08:00

I've always felt kind of bad about how little school spirit I show. I don't go to sporting events..... I don't go to devotionals..... I don't own a lot of blue....

So when I saw that Smith's had fizzix yogurt on 'clearance,' I decided to show a little school pride and buy some. I realize my purchase probably only contributed 2 cents at most to BYU. But I still feel good about myself.

So all you BYU supporters out there who feel no honest way to express how you feel, go buy some yogurt. It will fizzle in your mouth. I promise!

Elegance

2008-12-27T15:49:00.001-08:00

I'm a sucker for elegance. It makes me really happy to be part of it whenever I can. So, it's good that I didn't grow up in the Audrey Hepburn era or I definitely would have been a smoker. Amy took me to starbucks while in WA, and I loved the elegance and the karma. Good thing I live in Provo where coffee isn't nearly so elegant.

I've decided that the closest thing to the starbucks feel in Provo is either Guru's or Kneaders. Kneaders is like the starbucks of relief society--a cafe where you can buy crafts! Luckily neither one of these places break any major commandments--except that one to not spend money.

Gift Giving

2008-12-27T15:48:00.001-08:00

If I learned anything from my religion class this semester, it was this: "When giving gifts to your spouse, buy something that you yourself want and then convince her that she wanted it." I went into the gift giving festivities with this in mind. I felt I did very well....

1. Night at the anniversary inn for our 6 month anniversary -- she gets to feel loved, and I get cheesecake, jetted tub, and a few extra added bonuses

2. Sexy Apron -- She gets to feel pretty in the kitchen, and I get to look at something pretty in the kitchen

3. Play dough, bubbles, coloring book, and crayons -- she gets to think she'll have really fun toys, but I plan on playing with them the mostest.

4. Music books -- She gets music that she needs, and I don't have to pay for it later when she demands it (it can just be conveniently located as part of the Christmas budget)

Wife also went into Christmas shopping with this same philosophy--but she kind of missed the point. She did really good at the buying things for herself part, but bad at the part where she had to get me to believe that it was a really a gift for me.

Yup..... a scale..... How do you plan on convincing a boy that they really wanted a scale for Christmas? Granted my family has appeased my last birthday/Christmas needs with a whisk/cheese cutter.... but come on.... a scale!?! I was perfectly fine with the one that we had--it weighed me in at a very uncomplicated 140 every day.

I am Oedipus--ick!

2008-12-24T10:47:00.000-08:00

There's an old adage that says something along the lines of, "take a close look at your mother-in-law because this is what your wife will become if she isn't there already." Well, looking at life, I'm a little afraid that the girl that I married is an awful lot like my mother.

Here's two stories to illustrate:
Back in the days when my parents were newly married, you paid for the bags that you carried your stuff away in at grocery stores. My mom told the cashier the number of bags that she was taking home while my dad bagged the groceries. When they arrived home, my mom found that my dad had packed one more bag than she had paid for. She nagged at him for his heinous crime and made them drive back to the grocery store to pay their three-cent debt.

Awhile ago, my wife took a test in one of her music classes. The teacher left the denominator in the computer as 87 when it really should have been 100. Meaning that my wife's 93 gave her 107% instead of the 93% which she had earned. She sent several e-mails back and forth with her professor trying to explain the problem. He consistently responded back with a tone that said, "Look girl! Your grade is fine! You got an A! I don't understand what your problem is at all."

Yes, a college professor should understand the effect of a denominator... but he didn't (jazz musicians only have to be able to count to four usually). My wife was persistant in her quest for justice--about 12 e-mails worth of persistance. I thought that by this point the craziness had subsided, but I was wrong. Even after finals were over, she was still trying to convince him of his error. I tried to do everything that a husband can do to make his wife get his mind on something else.... but it didn't work. We were in the shower, and I thought that I had succeeded in clouding her mind... but no, she was still thinking of another way to explain it to him. She got out of the shower and promptly made the man a spreadsheet of her grade with highlighted cells and everything. He still just responded back with the customary tone, "GIRL YOUR GRADE IS FINE! YOU HAVE AN A! STOP BEING ONE OF THOSE PESKY PEOPLE WHO WORK TO GET THEIR GRADE CHANGED FROM A 97% TO A 98%"

At this point, she wrote him an e-mail saying thank you. I think for the most part she has been able to move on since then.... problem unresolved and all. Hopefully....

So... by these two stories, we can clearly see that I married my mother. I am Oedipus!

Romantic Memories

2008-12-22T16:20:00.000-08:00

For our six month anniversary (yesterday), I took wife back to the anniversary inn where we "wedding night"-ed. This time, we stayed in the phantom of the opera room. I won't go into too many of the details, but just say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. I have a fantastic wife: I got to stretch out in a jetted tub while a gorgeous red head spoon fed me cheesecake and handed me a champagne glass of sparkling cider.

In every room, they have a little journal where you can write about your stay for future patrons. We thoroughly enjoyed reading it. It seemed that a few people thought that it was less of a journal and more of a place to voice complaints to management. One girl (who spent her wedding night there) spent the entire page complaining--there's no windows, stairs are slippery, there's no clock, the bed was too small, etc... I felt especially bad for her poor husband who had spent the night with such a complainer; if she said such things about a gorgeous and fun room, I can only imagine the things she said about the company she was keeping. A man wrote at the bottom, "Did you expect there to be windows in the phantom's lair?" I thought to myself, "Are windows really that useful on your wedding night?... I don't really remember if our room had a window or not."

Some people writing in it go into a little too much detail. I thought those posts were a little weird and slightly disturbing. But for your reference, if you're ever in the anniversary inn and you can't think of anything to do, I suppose you could get a few ideas from the book.

But our favorite entries were these
"Well, I wanted to surprise my girlfriend and brought her to the Phantom of the Opera room for a special night. Little did I know she was planning on breaking up with me. So I stayed the night by myself! I loved it! And the tub was nice, I really loved the jets."

"I am very pleased with the room and my new wife and I enjoyed our stay oh so much. I am a man now and so very happy. Thank you"

Zip code o purity

2008-12-22T16:19:00.001-08:00

I was thinking that BYU campus (zip code 84602) is probably the only zip code in the world where you can't buy caffeine. So, when dignitaries or general authorities come and want caffeine, they have to import it from outside the zip code....

Passiveness

2008-12-11T22:33:00.000-08:00

One of my most awkward characteristics is that I'm remarkably passive. Confrontation makes my anxiety levels go to about the same level that they rise to during finals. I'm worried that this will probably make me kind of a bad businessman. When I was a kid, my mom checked out from the library a self help video for me about how to be assertive. Maybe I ought to go look up the video again.

So the other day I developed kind of a painful and awkward sore/lump/boil-esque thing on my body. On Monday, I went to the doctor to see what it was doing there. I mostly just wanted to make sure that it wasn't cancer or some other crazy suburban disease. A few doctors shined their light on it and then proclaimed that I had a cyst. They gave me an antibiotic and told me to make an appointment to come back in a couple days to have it drained/removed by the dermatologist/surgeon guy.

I went out to the receptionist, and she proceeded to tell me that she couldn't get me in until January 13th. The small aggressive part of my soul wanted to lash out: "Look lady, I know that Susie has an acne problem and that she needs some help before the Winter ball. I know that Jason has a very homely wart that he would like to have removed. I'm very sympathetic towards their plights. But, my little man has a cyst on him, and NO, he can't wait five weeks. He's gonna need to be used before then! So get me an appointment in the next few days or I'm jumpin over this desk, knocking you out, and adding my own name over Susie's."

But this was a very small part of me. So I said, "January 13th would be fine," and I left.

William Peter Stanley Humphrey Howell III

2008-12-11T19:18:00.000-08:00

Today walking across campus, I ran into a good friend from my mission. His name happens to be followed by a 3 just like the name in the title up there. I remembered when I first entered his application into our office database; I was so impressed by his prestige and obvious rich heritage.

I was reminded of this while I was walking away today..... then it hit me. All that the number 3 behind a name means is that your parents were boring and named you after your dad who was named after his dad. It doesn't mean that your parents are lucrative, it just means that they couldn't come up with another name. My parents could have done the same thing, my grandpa's name is Ronald, my dad's name is Ronald, my Grandma's name is Ronda, my mom's name is Ronda... If I had been a Ron as well, I would've been like the 5th person in a direct three generation stretch with the first name starting with the letters ron.

I don't really like the idea of naming children after parents. It just seems like it would add added confusion to your house. I get confused if there is a name anywhere close to mine in my vicinity. I can't even imagine how confused you would get at home. I'm very glad that there are only 5 people with my name on the entirely of BYU's campus... I couldn't handle it any other way.

My new philosophy

2008-12-09T10:35:00.000-08:00

Shortly after being married, my wife and I were "discussing" how she had lost her music, and how I didn't love the ~$35 charge now on her account. It was at this point, when a lovely Welsh woman inspired my new philosophy by saying, "Any problem that can be solved with money is not really a problem at all. Pay the money, and be glad that your problems can be solved with money."

So, now whenever I think of the need to buy a new laptop, to pay for a trip to Ireland, to buy a new recital dress, to pay weight watchers fees, to buy reduced fat foods..... I just grit my teeth, find my inner welsh woman, and say, "Any problem that can be solved with money......"

A new blog

2008-11-30T20:04:00.001-08:00

My wife and I have decided that we want to have a blog where we together can openly write about some of our thoughts. We plan to use it to discuss some of our "insights" about living with same sex attraction. However, we in no way plan for this to be the only topic of discussion therein--I hope it to be a place where we can wax quite religious on a number of topics (like faith, sunday school, funeral potatoes, the like).

Please take note that sexuality will be discussed relatively openly (yet sacredly of course) on this blog. If you're not interested in reading about said stuff, then please feel no awkwardness about not visiting said site. But if you would like, click here.

Weight Watchers

2008-11-30T19:10:00.000-08:00

I'm not one who is used to living a weight watcher sort of lifestyle. I love to cook, and I love to eat the things I cook sometimes. However, I tend to cook a little bit like a rather round southern belle: I believe that every meal should be followed by dessert (even if the meal was sugary cereal), I think that cheese makes a nice garnish to most all dishes, and I once went through a 6 kilo mound of margarine in 3 blissful transfers (~4 months).
But now, thanks to wife's choice of usage of her birthday money, I've now entered a world where counting points is the biggest part of my life. I'm trying really hard to be supportive.
Making food for us now consists of his/her bread, milk, peanut butter, yogurt, hot chocolate, pasta etc.... I've been trying to decide if it would be worse to eat healthier myself or to continue making every meal as separate entities.
I looked through loads of cookbooks at the library for weight watchers and the like... I basically discovered that every recipe that's healthy looks hard and has at least one ingredient that I have no idea what it is.

Today I successfully made a lunch that was only 7 points.... Yay for fat free miracle whip...
If any one has some recipes that aren't hard.... I'd love to know!

literacy

2008-11-21T10:15:00.000-08:00

I was just reading through a few of my previous posts, and I was a little alarmed at the amount of errors there seem to be in my posts.... I hope I haven't offended anyone. I guess it's just like that "shoots, eats, and leaves" lady says, written communication is dead and unintelligible!

Well, at least I can still count well. 'one.... two.... three..... four..... eight..... quatorze!'

The life of paper

2008-11-21T10:06:00.000-08:00

In an office, the whole purpose is to get every piece of paper out of your inbox and into someone else's inbox. Eventually, the paper ends up in a file.

In time, it might get moved up to the illusive 6th floor of the library where no one will ever mention it's existence again.

It just all seems so futile.

Self-fulfilling prophecies?

2008-11-17T19:01:00.000-08:00

I've been wondering recently if feelings towards the accounting junior core would be altered if people stopped describing it as being SO hard. Since the beginning of my days at BYU, I've been told of the hardness of the Junior Core which would someday await me. I've now had 5 years to stew over this foreboding news, and now I'm living it.

I won't lie..... It's quite demanding..... It often makes me discouraged and makes my poor little head hurt.... but I don't know that it's the hardest thing in the whole wide world..... I mean, despite it all, we are being judged on our ability to use the addition/subtraction/multiplying/dividing functions on our fun hp10BII financial calculators (which I love)...
Sometimes we get to do time value of money calculations on our fun calculators... but how does this really compare to Xister who is prooving these calculations with all sorts of mathematic symbols when I'm doing things like pushing
n=12
I-10
pv-1400
pmt-0
fv?
I mean come on.... all I really had to do there was push 14 buttons....
Do accountants persist in bemoaning the horrors of the junior core just to make sure that the supply of accountants doesn't become greater than the demand?

To any faithful readers still out there

2008-08-26T12:32:00.000-07:00

It's been a very long time since the last post. Yup, a very long time. I would imagine that most everyone has stopped reading. Well, I'm going to try to make a bit of a comeback, but without readers, maybe this won't work so well.

Hmmm, so what's been going on this last month.

Well, there's the big news that I got a cell phone. I always swore that this would never happened. Some people informed me that I wouldn't like it because it would make me always contactable. I worried about this at first, but now I realize that I can turn it off or "forget" it at home whenever I want. It doesn't control me.
I also remember people telling me that I would understand how much people wanted to talk to me once I got a cell phone because then they would be able to. Said phone just doesn't ring too much. I don't really believe that anyone ever had a need to get a hold of me to begin with. But perhaps the lack of calls has to do with my abundance of gold on my finger. I don't know.

Other news, I'm also good and up to my neck in Accounting JR core stuff. The first day of school this semester was the scariest of all my years. Usually, teachers give you the syllabus and I feel all fluttery inside. This year, we didn't get the syllabus on the first day... but we did spend the first day talking about all of the great war stories in the scriptures. It was a little over the top... but the overall message was that the war of homework is coming so you better put on some armor now before you get squished.

Anyways, so now I feel that I'm double busy and double boring (now I'm married and all I think about is accounting, lame-o). But I'll try to post a little bit more frequently.

Two more quotes

2008-08-23T19:11:00.000-07:00

Crolace: A really fun thing to do when you're making sandwiches is to sing the "savages" song from Pocahantas as "Sandwiches! Sandwiches! Barely even human!"

Another primary one....
A: Why don't women get to hold the priesthood?
Wife: Because they have other important blessings and things to do
A: Like what?
Wife: You'll find out later in life.
A: If the boys leave the room, will you tell us?
Wife: Having the priesthood is a big responsibility
A: Don't boys mess it up?

The first bad act of marriage

2008-08-23T19:06:00.000-07:00

My wife just barely turned to me and said, "You left the toilet seat up... does this mean something bad is happening?"
I awkwardly said yes, and then took out the garbage in an effort to remedy....
Hopefully I haven't messed up the world too much... must be more careful....

Quotes

2008-08-18T14:02:00.000-07:00

Quotes from our primary class:
A (who is precocious): Ummm, so let's say that there are two people who didn't get married in the temple, but their kids want to be sealed to them... do they have to be sealed to each other
Me: Ummm, little girl... this isn't high priest quorum...
A Well, what about if you get a divorce
Me: We're never going to get a divorce... So, um, who can tell us what the word 'priesthood' means.

While singing the Latter-day prophet song, A raises her hand and says,
"Ummm, well, I was reading in the friend and well... We're singing this song wrong!"
Song Leader: "I'm very glad that you read your friend. No, this time is going to be extra special because we're going to sing it this way for the very last time"

After hearing a story about a girl who gave her school teacher scriptures:
Teacher: "So you can give your teacher some scriptures maybe"
A: "What if your teacher is mormon"
Teacher: "You can ask her if she reads her scriptures."

Talking about Amalikiah
Me: So who are some examples of good leaders in our lives.
J: Well, there was this one guy on the cereal box.
Me: Yes, people on cereal boxes are often appointed as leaders... This often leads to destruction like with Amalikiah

Me: What are some trials you have in your life
J: Plain flavored cheerios

Non-primary quotes

(My wife being comforted by another woman whose husband struggles with same sex attraction)
T: "just think, in all of the human race (not just women, but men and women) he chose you. Most women can't say that!"

(my wife ordering fries after our WA reception; so in wedding dress with presents in back)
Wife: What sizes do you have
girl: (awkward pause) small, medium, and large
(at window)
girl: Did you just get married?
us: no

Yay for bus!

2008-08-14T07:44:00.001-07:00

My wife and I have the very pleasant opportunity of commuting by bus everyday. The morning ride is definitely one of the highlights of our day. We are greeted by Barbara--a very friendly, spunky lady who makes us happy. She cracks jokes, runs yellow lights, has running commentary. She always makes sure that the bus is a real party. Everyone loves her so much that they just join right in the madness.

For example, today, Barbara raced through the mall parking lot instead of taking the real route around the corner and through 2 more lights. It was a big rush to beat her husband to the transit center. We passed him at the stop sign and the entire bus went crazy! I've never been to a football game, but it was kind of like how I imagine a touchdown (or whatever those things are).

Yesterday, we had cute, romantic entertainment. Barbara drove her husband the few feet from where she had parked to where he had parked and then they shared a kiss.... Better than daytime tv it was!

And my other favorite thing about the bus is taking things home on it....
On the ride home I have carried
1. wedding dress
2. suit
3. bridal bouquet
4. silk flowers

Things we've thought about taking home on the bus, but have found other ways around it...
1. puppy
2. comforter
3. bed frame

4. 5 gallon bucket of paint
5. a giraffe (okay, this one was never actually thought about, but it would've been an adventure... Well, they probably wouldn't have even allowed it... once they wouldn't even let us bring on my wife's bike)...

But yes, yay for bus!

shortcut to looking strong?

2008-08-11T15:05:00.000-07:00

Upon walking into the library, I have always been in awe at the maturity and the strength of the security guards. They always look so tough and ready to shoot. But today, as I walked in, I realized that their entire duty seems to revolve around taking books and making sure nobody steals books. And I wondered if they were really as strong as they seemed.

So, my big wonder was, "Were I to put on a security guard outfit, would this make me look like a capable security guard?" Thoughts?

Hotness incarnate

2008-08-07T15:55:00.000-07:00

My wife is sexy in all colors and lights. Thanks to me recently learning about picasa, I can show you this.....

In Sepia

In focal Black and White
In Soft Focus
In pink
And one more in Sepia because it makes her look SO good!

Sorry Dudes, She's mine!

Tender Mercies in la forme Quebecoise

2008-08-07T14:18:00.000-07:00

My blessings always seem to come fit to please. You might recall the time when the blessings were directed towards Herbert, my little accounting man. Well, the other day they were directed to the little man inside of me that adored my mission.

After work, my little red headed affair and I went to check out an apartment. We arrived at the joint. It was a house with 6 apartments on the inside. Can I even express how much I felt like I was tracting when I walked inside of it. This house was 'cois right down to the ghetto mailboxes which looked something like this.

If there had been a buzzer button above each one and another door that we had to get buzzed into, I probably would've started into some spill about "nous sommes missionnaires de l'eglise...." as soon as I saw a victim.

Then we saw the apartment. It was a one room shanty no more bigger than the front desk area at my work. Most of this space was being taken up by the hugest, blackest heater that I'd ever seen (I only realized that this was what it was upon asking). The landlady explained to us how such an apartment could be accomplished (this involved sticking the bed into the closet, having no table, having no electrical outlets in the kitchen, and jumping out the broken window in the case depression hit too hard). It only took a couple of seconds to realize that it would never work for us. Yet, I was very amused to realize that I'd taught many of the first lessons of my mission in about such circumstances. Made me happy....

Then later that day, I went to go and pick up our bed frame from Wal-Mart. It had been shipped to the store from a website order. Picking it up was a tad more difficult than expected. Walmart, of course, has super low prices, and they can totally afford this because they aren't paying for any customer service. I pushed the little touch-for-help screen several times over about a fifteen minute period while scouring the area for anyone who might look helpful. In despair, I eventually got down on the bench for a long winter's nap. But then, a woman with a Barbara Streisand nose, and a larger-than-Barbara belly came to my rescue. She got my information and went on a search for the bed frame. She puzzedly entered the area several times to check the information, and eventually came to tell me that she couldn't find it. I told her that it said that it was there, so it probably was. She found it quicker once she realized that she was looking for a simple metal bedframe instead of something with some elaborate headboard.

So, she eventually got it and brought it out to me, and I was super excited to get it home and to have a bed. I got it out to my car; and with chagrin, I discovered it to be too long for the back seat.... and even too big for the trunk. I didn't know for sure what to do, so I took the only plausible option.

Yup, I stole the cart. I felt so Quebecois as I pushed it up the hill. This is such a big problem there that a lot of stores have little guard rails that prevent you from even taking the cart out of the store into the parking lot.

Don't worry, the righteous side of me pushed it back to WalMart.

Anniversary: Month1

2008-07-28T08:59:00.001-07:00

Romantic days do not always turn out super well for me. I look back over Valentine's days of the past three years and I remember
1. tracting in horrifically cold weather all day long in Val d'Or and shoveling mountains of snow off of some polish people's roof.
2. Missing about 4 buses and wandering around freezing Montreal till 11:00 ( a bit past curfew) trying to make our way back to apartment.
3. Being so lonely that I wrote love posts to excel.

My one month anniversary kind of fit this trend. We started out the day of high plans of libraries and making a delicious mock-wedding cake. We hungrily got off of work and headed over to the library. We had a very pleasant time feeding our library addiction and finding all sorts of children's books about love. We walked back to 4th east to get on a bus, and we saw the bus flying past....

So, then we walked to Xister's house. Luckily he was hosting dinner group so he provided us with lucious roast beef and stuff. Double luckily, he gorgeous girlfriend was there to provide us with scintillating conversation. We waited there for about an hour and then went to go catch the bus again. The bus came a little late, but we got on it (my wife had forgotten her bus pass, but she coyly talked her way on to the bus that morning and this time). The problem with this bus coming late was that it meant that our transfer bus was zooming away as we arrived. In a moment of desperation, we got on another bus that might have worked out or might have left us stuck in Sandy. Unfortunately, the nice bus driver was a little bit more rule driven, and he said that although he believed my wife, he would need her to pay. I forked out the two dollars. But then as he was pulling out of the parking lot, my wife called my sister and found out that she was in a position to come and save us. So, we pulled the cord and got off a block later. $2 for one block.... Yippee...
So, then we sat at Big lots until we could be rescued....

Eventually, we got home, but we were kind of tired. Relentlessly, my wife got the cake mix ready anyways. We put it in our new top-of-the-line convection oven (but a bit close to the top and a bit far away from the bottom). When I pulled it out, the top was burnt a bit. Then I went to flip it over on the plate and it oozed out all over the oven door (It's glass, so I kind of forgot that it was between me and the plate still). I found myself with a cake that was part black stuff/part liquid. I sadly went to bed. Luckily, my wife got us a couple of cupcakes done that we could feed to each other before falling asleep....

Precocious judgementalism

2008-07-23T11:12:00.001-07:00

The following conversation was influenced by this picture à gauche.

L: What's the story behind that picture?

me: Which picture?

L: The one that's on your chat thing

me: Oh, I was holding a shirt that was on fire

L: It was on fire?
Tell me more.

me: There was a fire pit, so I took my shirt off and dipped it in the fire
Then I held it up
Then I dropped the rest in the fire

L: Where was a fire pit?!?!!?

me: Ummm, it was on my mission
It was at a ladies house in the middle of nowhere
It was near val d'or, Quebec in Canada

L: You took your shirt off at a ladies house in Canada?!?!?
???????????????????????

Me: ummmm
Does this make me a bad person?

L: I don't know.......

me: Not in front of her
If you notice, I'm wearing a different shirt in the picture
I'm not shirtless while doing it

L: I don't know what to think of this Bran.

me: It's a missionary tradition all over the world to burn a shirt on your year mark

L: My whole life I've always thought of you as a good little boy.
What???????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11
!!
!
!!
!!!
!!!!
!!!!!
!!!!!!
!!!!!!!

me: Kay calm down

L: Did Xister do this?

me: I'm still the same person you've always known and loved
I don't know
Lots of missionaries do
My companion did it the same time I did

L: If lots of missionaries jumped off a bridge would you do it too?
:-

me: maybe
If the mission president said it was okay
And as long as it was super fun
And nobody died

L: The mission president said it was OK to take your shirt off at a ladies house and burn it in a fire pit?
Well?
He didn't did he.

me: Not specifically

L: Bran!

me: He just said that this tradition was probably not okay in the city because you can't have fires
But we did it in a fire pit
Completely legal
And I was so blasted far away from the city
And I took off the shirt in her laundry room and then put on another shirt

L: My glowing image of you faded.

me: L, EVERYTHING REVOLVING AROUND THE PICTURE IS COMPLETE RIGHTEOUS AND LEGAL
AND MY MISSION PRESIDENT WOULD'VE BEEN OKAY WITH IT
AND I'M TYPING IN CAPS BECAUSE YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND

L: Actually it sort of got brighter because now you're on Fire.
Oh well.
**** Change of Subject ******
Do you know Canada's National Anthem?

me: Yup
I have a copy of it in my piano bench at home

L: Do you have it memorized?

me: No

L: Well then,
Oh Canada!
Our home and native land!
True Patriots' Love!
In all our sons command!

me: Are you judging me now because I don't have Canada's national anthem memorized?
Do you have the United state's anthem memorized?

L: With glowing hearts we see thee rise
the tru north strong and free
from far and wide oh canada
we stand on guard for thee!
Long may you stand!
Glorious and free!
Oh Canada, we stand on guard for thee!
Oh canada, we stand on
Guard!
FOR!
THEE!

me: Yes, that's it

L: Oh.
Say.
Can.
You.
See.
By the dawn's early light.

me: Can you go on for all 3 verses?
That's the question...

L: What so proudly we hailed
At the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars,
Through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched
Were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare,
The bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night
That our flag was still there.
O, say, does that
Star-Spangled Banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free
And the home of the brave
2nd verse:

me: I don't believe that you really have this memorized
You have the internet
Did you google it?

L: On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave
3rd verse:
Oh thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: 'In God is our trust.'
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave
Ta da!!!!!
I'm amazing.

me: Precocious is the word I would have used to describe you

L: Why thank you!

me: I don't believe that you had all that memorized
And if you did, well then you are just too righteous and wonderful for me I guess
And I am too vile of a sinner
Perchance we ought not continue our friendship

L: I think we should be friends forever!
That way we'll even each other out.

me: But don't you remember that lesson in primary
You have to stay away from wicked influences

L: But they also said to help others and bring them back into the light.

me: But where must the line be drawn between an association where I will hurt you and where you can help me
?

L: I'm pretty sure you won't hurt me.
So that's that.
Here's a great link for you by the way.

me: I've decided that you are now not only precocious but presumptuous

L: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star-Spangled_Banner#Lyrics
It's the first step to being brought into the light again.
Well............
Hmm......
Hey!

me: Wait, did you lie?

L: No.

me: Did you deceive me by pretending you had the national anthem memorized?
Do you have the national anthem memorized?
Tell the truth?

L: If you will read that portion of our chat carefully, you will see that I never said I had the Canadian nor the American National Anthem memorized.

me: Yes, but you were deceitful in that when I asked if you had it memorized, you started spouting it off
Who's the sinner now, baby!

100 Posts! Yippee!

2008-07-20T18:15:00.003-07:00

Officially, this blog has 100 posts on it... Following in the footsteps of Crolace (the master example of all good blogging with whom I have recently reconciled), I have decided to do a top 10 list of the most amazingest things that I have ever written on my blog... It was super hard to choose because everything I write is entirely publishable. Maybe I should have done a botton 10 and then told you all to go re-read the other 90. Well, on to the prizes (note these are numbered chronologically and not according to quality...nothing without quality will be listed--Who am I joshin? Nothing without quality put anywhere near my blog):

My wrestle with Herbert
Proposal story
My Valentine’s Day Post
Near Fatalities
Tender Mercies
My Fair Friend is Fettered
Temptation
Depressed
Empathy
Seeking for any way to make the process easier

My watch.... :(

2008-07-20T18:15:00.001-07:00

Ummm, so sad story....
You might remember reading about my watch once before. If not see here.

Well, it happened yet again... Under similar circumstances....
I was kissing that girl and stuff and then I realized that the band on my watch had broken.... I'm cursed!!!!!!!!!

However, Xister wasn't entirely correct in his prediction... He thought this might happen everytime I kissed her... We have kissed a few times between March and yesterday.

But I'm an accountant sans watch encore....!

Served from on high

2008-07-14T13:16:00.000-07:00

The other day, I took a fairly traditional trip over to the ASB to get some things signed by one of the Vice Presidents. I feel very honored to occasionally associate with people who are right below Cecil O (my hero) in hierarchy. I dropped off the folders in the office and took a quick stop off to the bathroom on my way out. I quickly finished what I was doing; and while I was washing my hands, the VP abruptly pushed open the door, handed me the folder and left....

Basically, I felt like a very important person (VIP) to have been served by such a high up man while participating in such an apparently lowly activity...

Reviews

2008-07-09T15:41:00.000-07:00

I thought that I would take a moment to share a few of the things I've been encountering recently that I've rather enjoyed.

The Red Head and I have been taking good advantage of our bus time as a time to read to one another. The bus driver finds us very cute--possibly the cutest couple on the bus. This book was very fun to read aloud. There were lots and lots of great voices to be done - Norweigian Grandma, some good British folks, a German head witch, and whatever other voices you want to create for the other various witches. A Great book. It's also very educational. I know how to identify witches now, and I'm pretty sure that the little old lady who taught third grade across from my class was definitely a witch.

This was another bus read. We finished this one all in one day! I was very excited to learn that one can combine all sorts of potentially toxic sounding ingredients into a big pot and boil them and then use it to aggrandize victims. Very exciting 'tis! A must read for any and all upcoming scientists... or for people who believe in destroying grandparents.

Moliere: A very artsy French flick that shows the fictional inspiration for the play Tartuffe. I basically loved it because it was artsy and French. Doesn't take too much more than this to please me. Ummm, so you should watch it... GO, now.

On a slightly more serious note was this beautiful, heart-wrenching film set during WWII. It earned points in my book because it also is in French, but mostly because it portrayed a misunderstood subject matter in such an honest and informative way. It follows the lives of a gay couple and their interaction with a Jewish girl who they harbor. It shows parts of the brutal reality of concentration camps while not being overly disturbing. It was the saddest movie that I have seen in a while, and it initiated a lot of thinking in my mind. I was so impressed with the honest way it portrayed the coming out experience (the relationship between brothers was beautiful). I didn't feel that it was necessarily promoting any sort of "gay agenda;" it simply promoted a bit more thought. I loved it.

Oh, and this recipe for lemon chicken was delicious. SOOOOOO Good!

Sharing a Bed

2008-07-08T08:49:00.000-07:00

I received a great deal of advice about how difficult it was going to be to adjust to a new living buddy. I was well advised on the anger that I would feel on my insides relating to squeezed tubes of toothpaste and upside down toilet paper (we don't have a place to hang toilet paper, so this part really isn't that big of a deal). However, I don't remember receiving any advice about sharing a bed (well at least not for the non-euphemistic literal usage of the phrase).

I have another personality that I've yet to write about on my blog. I have not shared his inner workings with my readers yet because, well, I've never actually met this personality. For purposes of this post, I will refer to him as sleeping Bran (although I do not know if this is his name as I have not yet had the pleasure of acquainting him). He comes out only when normal Bran and the rest of the gang go to sleep--hence the name.

Well, he seems to be quite a disconsiderate, slightly confused fellow from what I hear. He makes bed sharing to be most difficult. 'Awake Bran' would be more than happy to make a few concessions to make the whole situation better; however, he gets no say in the matter because he disappears without a trace behind 'sleeping Bran.'

'Sleeping Bran's' problems are as follows:
1. He talks - usually in nonsensical terms involving filing cabinets and paper work and whatever else might be concerning him.
2. He rolls up in the covers thereby stealing them away from anyone else who might want to sleep.
3. He kind of wants to be left alone which makes cuddling not his position of choice
4. He flails and rolls about, as if he were alone, occasionally squishing innocent bistanders

But it should be well known that none of the blame for any of these problems should be in any way attributed to me because I don't have any control! Any bruises found on the red headed person are not my fault! (except maybe the one that was caused by Jacques, but that one is healed I think....)

Stuck

2008-06-27T09:11:00.000-07:00

A week and a day ago, as I was preparing for one pre-wedding reception, I was feeling a little bit stuck to this girl--It kind of felt like someone had poured peanut butter and jelly all over me. It kind of made me aprehensive. But now, I realize that my previous feelings were no more than a weak, watery adhesive compared to the super glue and rubber cement and hot wax that encase me now....

Wow, what a change a half an hour in a temple can bring! I'm now very, very stuck...

But I love it, and I love her. Feeling sticky isn't always bad I guess--kind of like when you are sticky because you have a delicious lolly pop in your hand!

The why behind the two sexes

2008-06-17T15:26:00.001-07:00

Bridal showers have been kind of a large part of life as of recently. And we'll honestly acknowledge that I'm pretty grateful for them; they provided us with a fair amount of useful things and a fair amount of unuseful yet kind of fun things. However, I've seen that bad things happen when a whole lot of girls get together without any male supervision or influence....

The other day, I was mudding the walls in our apartment while red headed girl was bridal showering. My peaceful experience was wildly interrupted by 3 very excited early teenage girls. The feeling of high euphoria with a tad of overdramaticness and wild hormones filled the air. They were in a mood that I had heard existed at girl's camps where congregations of women were unstoppable, but never before in the walls of my own home.... They urged me to come over to give red head kisses and to untie bows out of her hair. I knew immediately that I wanted no part of this world.

Now don't interpret this post as sexist... I am well aware that the chaos created at boy's camp is just as bad if not majoring worse....

Clearly, God created two sexes because the world would be crazy if one gender ever happened to get completely sequestered from the other.

Recycling

2008-06-17T15:22:00.000-07:00

The other day I was working on a project with the purple lady. She printed off our little project and wasted a fair amount of paper. When I questioned her, she justified herself saying that she was going to recycle.

So, the question is, "Is it better to print and then recycle than to never have printed at all?" Hmmm, if printers had been more prevalent in Spencer W. Kimball's time, I'm pretty sure the Miracle of Forgiveness would have addressed this....

My Wrestle with Herbert

2008-06-05T19:53:00.001-07:00

As we made our list of people to give announcements to, we found our list to be anything but short. In order to appease my inner accountant, Herbert (I know I introduced him as Dexter once, but this sadly isn't his name), I decided that I would walk around all of the ones in Provo in an effort to save on postage.

So a few weeks ago, I had been at it for about 2 hours, and had managed to save about $4. I was in southern Provo trying to find all of my Grandma's friends (of whom I know none, and none know me). My feet were starting to yell up at me, "We've been walking around for a very long time now in shoes with huge holes in them just because you are too cheap to buy new shoes or to spend 42 cents on postage! None of these people know who you are! What are you doing????? Is this the way you want to live your life."

At this point, Herbert defensively got into position... But I, who previously lived with two wrestling companions, was already running for the tackle. Herbert went down, and from that moment, I enjoyed peaceful walking moments for the rest of the evening. I then used the money that I saved on postage to buy some new shoes.

A few days later, Herbert convinced me to tackle the ones that we had in Wymount Terrace (why waste postage when they are all so close together). The red head informed me that Wymount Terrace was scary... "Scary, how?" I asked as I imagined a 3 year old boy shooting me down with a water gun. "Organizationally scary," she replied. Well, I soon realized that she was right and that Herbert should've been shot down before the journey even began. I was granted finding the first one relatively quickly. But then I began to realize that the 100 apartments were next to the 400 apartments which were next to the 900 apartments and that I was going to have to walk around near every building to find my next 4 destinations. So, I walked up and down and around hills for the next hour and managed to save $2.10. I was relatively mad at Herbert again, but instead of beating him up, I just went and bought some ice cream with the money that I had saved that day.

After my ice cream had calmed me down a bit, Herbert turned to me and said, "You know... You got shoes and ice cream out of this. This is what frugality is all about." Bran, Jacques, Beauregard, and Bunny couldn't do anything but agree. Herbert hasn't been having so many issues with all my other boys ever since.

Terminology

2008-06-05T19:39:00.000-07:00

So, the other day I learned of the term mixed orientation marriage. I decided that this is a very silly term. Right up there with interracial, interclass, or inter cultural marriage. The next thing you know, we'll have to come up with a term for couples who can't agree on a china pattern.

However, I think a term for people who can't agree on the usefulness of cell phones would be useful for my situation. Mon Gregoire suggested, "Mixed Cellulapology marriage"--I like it!

A conversation from those soon to be boring

2008-06-05T19:26:00.000-07:00

Friends,
I'm extremely sorry that I haven't been posting recently. I've got lots of good ideas in my head, but I've got to get them written in the next two weeks because in 17 days I will become boring. Xister has informed me that the moment I get married, my days of being interesting will be over. There probably won't be any reason to check my blog after that....

I'm afraid the transformation to boredom is already taking place. Here is some of our recent e-mail conversation.
Me: Yes, I know that you love me. Now, deep down inside you're probably a filing cabinet like unto your mother, so file away the fact that you love me in every single drawer (so you never forget)
Her: I'll file it all over the place, and scan it in too...
Me: Okay, good! When you feel a need to pull something out in a discussion. Bring that one up...
Her: I promise not to become my mother...
Me: As long as you always pull out the right thing (see aforementioned conversation) out, we should be fine even if you are a bona fide filing cabinet.
Her: Hehehe. Okay, I will always pull out the "I love you" file.
Me: This is good. Hmmm, I'm afraid that I'm getting sick again....
Her: Are we going to die now?
Me: possibly. Even with as expensive as funerals are, Herbert tells me that dying now is much cheaper than paying to live and then having to pay to die (at inflated prices) later.
Her: Okay...Ummm, but let's talk about all of the money that we would have to spend on therapy for me after loosing you.
Me: Oh, well I was thinking that we could die together.... But if it's just me, I would recommend that you continue your original plan of being a student forever so that you can use the free therapist on campus :)
Her: and spend WAY too much money on tuition. Ummm, let's get sealed and then die. I think I like this plan better.
Me: Oh yes, well I was also planning on at least living until after the sealing. I think that whatever I have should at least take 16 days to cause death. Even cancer usually takes longer than this..
Her: Okay, sounds good. I think I would like to die with you instead of having to do this alone game again. No more dating.
Me: deal

See, my life is of scintillating conversation is over.... I hope you all have other friends you can turn to now that it's too late for me.

subject lines

2008-05-23T13:27:00.000-07:00

I have been going through paper after paper of letters sent by law firms to our office. I just came across one that made my day however.... "Authorization for two signatures and dating"
In the future legal world this could be something that fathers receive before prom night.

This line goes right up there with the great lines from my calculus textbook "a couple of jerks" and "an extreme case of corner."

"It is entirely my fault!"

2008-05-22T14:06:00.000-07:00

"No, of course what really matters
Is the blame, Somebody to blame.
Fine, if that's the thing you enjoy,
Placing the blame,If that's the aim,
Give me the blame-" (Witch, Into the Woods-Stephen Sondheim)

Today as I arrived at work, my boss approached me about a mistake that she had found. I did a bit of research to find out if it was really a mistake, and how it happened to happen. I discovered that yes it was indeed something that I had done wrong. Upon realizing this, thoughts flew through my brain about why this was not my fault (even though it was)..."I had been given two invoices." "How was I to know whether this was new or old" "that man had asked me to pay it for him..."

Yet despite all these thoughts, when she came, what came out of my mouth was "It is entirely my fault." At first I was like, "Wait, silly boy, why did you say that? That's like inviting yourself to be fired!" But then a very strange thing happened: her anger seemed to subside and she calmly talked to me about how she knew that something like this could be tricky, but calmly asked if I could work on some sort of a system so that this doesn't happen.

Blame is kind of a tricky thing. Most creatures tend to do anything they can to shift the blame from away from their person. However, I think that fully accepting it is often more useful for the accused. The person who was "accusing" is softened a bit, as opposed to them having to bitterly accept that it isn't "your fault." And there's that thing called accountability which is kind of important.

I'll be sure to pass this little truth of wisdom to my children (someday when they exist of course)...... I think it will serve them well with their interactions with mommy. If I use my own advice, it will also probably increase the pleasantness in my interactions with mommy.

Google analytics

2008-05-22T14:04:00.001-07:00

To faithful readers:
Now, that I've installed google analytics, I know that my blog was visited 8 times yesterday.... And I'm pretty sure that some of them were someone besides myself because 3 of them were even in a different state!
I feel bad that people visited and that I hadn't written anything for awhile. Now that I have a way to confirm that people are actually checking my blog, I'll probably have a greater desire to write more. So I will work on this.........

Awkward situation

2008-05-19T14:17:00.000-07:00

Around the beginning of the year, I was not feeling this whole “go on date” thing. I saw it as useful for some people for the purpose of eventual marriage. But I was a bitter, confused boy. At Christmas dinner, my mom accidently set out an extra place mat. I, of course, asked, “Who is this for.”

“Why, for my future daughter in law,” she responded.

I retorted, “Well, don’t get your hopes up. Elijah will probably come to eat dinner with us before a girl shows up in my life.”

In an effort to help remedy this so that she could someday have grandbabies, she offered me two season tickets to the Hale as a Christmas present. So, she told me to buy them (in exchange for forgiving some of my debt). Now, I didn’t even see it as probable that I would be capable of finding 6 dates throughout the year. I figured that I probably would enjoy going to the theatre just as much by myself as with someone because once the play starts it doesn’t really matter if you know the person next to you or not, and because this way it would be cheaper and I wouldn’t have to go through the blasted stress of finding someone else to go. So, after all this confliction. I disregarded my mother’s wishes, and my statement (so awkwardly recorded on Christmas day that I was going to take dates to these plays) became a perjury. I bought one ticket.

I went to the first show contentedly by myself. I felt a little awkward because the theater had taken the liberty of placing an empty chair on either side of me lest anybody there have any doubts about me being alone. There were even two couples from my former ward there who awkwardly asked if I was dating anyone.

Second show comes, and I go by myself again. No big deal….

But now, I’m engaged! So, I buy another ticket I guess………

Awkward

Computer help desk

2008-05-14T14:52:00.000-07:00

Mostly I try not to whine about strange things that my computer is doing because it always leads to the same response from my boss: "Send in a ticket to the computer help desk." They're very kind people, however sometimes they aren't super helpful and they often make me feel stupid as I acknowledge to them that I don't know what I am talking about...

Well, the other day, one of the programs I use regularly stopped working because my connection to the O: network drive had ceased to exist...
When the very nice boy came, our conversation went something like this:
N: So you don't have acess to the O: network drive.
Me: Correct, this is why I sent for you. I used it last a couple of days ago before you came to fix the same afflicted program for my neighbor.
N: So you used to have it connected? Why did it stop being connected?
Me: I don't know? You were looking at it the other day so you could fix this guy's problems. What did you do to it?
N: So it just disappeared suddenly.
Me: Maybe it faded out slowly or something. I don't know. I wasn't watching it because I wasn't expecting it to disappear.
N: Okay, so I think I've got it. What's the network's password?
Me: I don't know
N: Maybe we can ask MJ when she gets off the phone
Me: Sure
N: Umm, well I'm going to go. Call me if you have any problems.....

Well, he leaves, my program still doesn't work. And I give up on that for the moment. But today, I looked on my neighbor's computer which works, and I figured out the properties for the program, and I mapped my network drives by myself! I was desperately proud of myself. I felt very intelligent and almost computer literate and semi manly.

Yay, I can tell my children that once I fixed something....

Free Agency and office supplies

2008-05-06T15:11:00.000-07:00

Today at work, I was given the exciting task of going onto the Corporate Express website to order some needed supplies. So, I went on a search for the items which I was told that we needed, and was madly chagrined and conflicted when I saw that there were 234 search results for staples, 104 for paper towels, and 70 for prong fasteners. I didn't know what to do. There were so many choices.

Why do we insist on having so many choices in our lives? Why are there so many different types of apples or doughnuts or bagels to choose from at the grocery store? Why is there a whole aisle devoted to different types of cold mediciene? I, for one, would appreciate it if there were just a few fewer choices in life. I do everything that I can to reduce choices. For example, I own three pairs of pants. I wear the khaki pair Mon-Thurs, the jeans Fri-Sat, and the suit pants on Sunday. No decision necessary.

So, to continue with my office supply adventure. I was, to say the least, overwhelmed. I started to sift through the staples and in the end just picked the ones that were on the top of the list. Hopefully they work; they said "standard" on them. Then I had to choose the paper towels. I figured that I should be more systematic about this choice. So, I opened up excel and proceeded to find out which ones were cheapest per roll. I eventually settled on some nice ones that cost $1.57 per roll. The prong fasteners weren't quite so big of a deal because I just matched the box that we already had.... But still, cut a poor office worker some slack.

I enjoy having free agency, but I would enjoy it if I didn't have to exercise it quite so much. Maybe if we eliminated some of the options, we would actually have more freedom...

Day 9 without fiance...

2008-05-05T15:55:00.000-07:00

So, my love has officially been on tour for 9 days. I'm holding up alright I suppose. I keep myself entertained with all the random thoughts that just come into my head. Here are my favorite thoughts of the day....

1. Today a nice man walked into my office and took a picture on his cell phone of the painting on our wall. I work in an office that specializes in intellectual property services of all sorts, so I felt some violation happening of some sort. I was wondering if it was part of my line of duty to jump over my desk and tackle him down and steal his cell phone. But as he was from a different country, I didn't want to cause an international affair. I stayed calmly behind my desk.

2. Why do they put the cheese last on tacos? I mean, if there is any part of a taco that you don't want to fall off, it's the cheese. They really ought to bury it deep somewhere where it won't fall off. I mean, if lettuce falls off, no big deal. But with the current ordering, the cheese has to fall off first....

3. I just asked a man if he would like to be transferred to someone's voice mail. He responded that this would be lovely. It made me very happy that a male BYU professor with dignity and integrity would use the same phraseology as myself.

So these were my random thoughts for the day. I do hope my fiance comes home soon....

The Need to Warn

2008-04-28T15:53:00.001-07:00

In the LDS church and culture, the idea of warning is very important to us. In fact every fifth Sunday is dedicated to reminding us that we need to tell people about the gospel and warn them of the consequences of not knowing about or following the gospel. And I heartily support the doing of this warning. However, I do think that we sometimes take this warning thing a little far.

For example, I had the opportunity of speaking at Stake Conference the Sunday after I got my mission call. After the meeting, a young couple that I didn’t know came up and talked to me. They told me that they were glad that I was so excited about going on a mission, but they warned me that it wasn’t going to be anything like what I was thinking it would be like. They told me how hard it would be and how it wasn’t anywhere near the apparent “spiritual world” that I had depicted in my talk. Then another man came up to me and said that he had recently returned from the same mission that I was going to. I asked him how he liked it. He simply replied, “It’s cold.”

Looking back on this after having gone on a mission, I find these warnings to have been rather superfluous. I knew that everything wouldn’t be idealistic, and while I had days that weren’t very much fun, I enjoyed it on the whole, and I wouldn’t warn anybody against it.

As I approach marriage, I’m beginning to feel a little bit the same way. It seems that everyone seems to be quick to congratulate, but then also to point out how impossible it will be to be happy and just how many problems we will have. I was having a conversation with a woman at work the other day, and every good thing that I explained to her that my fiancé and I have going for us, she quickly combated saying that all of these things could change and that I had no idea the problems that I’m getting into. The warnings from many directions seem plentiful.

It’s no wonder that the prophets and apostles have to go around preaching the m’s of mission and marriage with all of these well-meaning people with so much experience who feel such a burning responsibility to warn.

Passions and Personalities

2008-04-28T15:15:00.000-07:00

When my ex-roommate found out that I was majoring in accounting, he was very confused as to why anyone would choose to do such an icky thing. In an effort to help me pick out a new major, he asked what I was passionate about. I scanned my brain and realized that I didn’t seem to be passionate about much anything, and I figured that my lack of passion was the reason why I was good at accounting. I have several personalities that I’ve identified and named, but as I examined each one, I was unable to find much true passion.

My personalities are as follows:
1. Beauregard-He’s very silly and kind of extreme when it comes to getting laughs
2. Despondant-He’s very depressed and apathetic
3. Dieter-He’s way feminine
4. Bunny – an extreme form of Beauregard but less flamboyant than Dieter. Dustin’s red headed girl likes this one.
5. Dexter –A shy little boy who likes to spend lots of time doing his homework
6. Anthony – a digestive track that is often angry

But the other day, I discovered a new friend inside of me who has nothing but passion. His name is Jacques, and he’s a little Frenchman who adores kissing a red headed girl. I have never been in a situation where he could be used before, so he had no way of coming out and showing himself to the world. But the other day when I was saying goodbye to my girl before sending her off to the war of choir tour, Jacques made his presence known, and he seemed to take over. But no fears, we won’t let him play too much for another 8 weeks or so because the “packet” that our stake gave us forbids him.

It was at this point that I realized that my personalities do have passions, but that none of those passions would make good career paths. Jacques is passionate about kissing, Beauregard is passionate about comedic timing, Bunny is passionate about musicals, Dieter is passionate about weird things and shock value (so we try to keep him in check), Dexter is passionate about grades, Anthony is passionate about vomiting, and Despondent is passionate about death. But see, I can’t follow any of my passions because none of these are majors at BYU and none of them really lead to a successful life.

And this is why I choose to major in Accounting…

There's a post for everyone in the world...

2008-04-11T19:21:00.001-07:00

I hope everyone is happy!! I've now written a post for everyone that requested that they be in some way mentioned on my blog for their good deeds relating to my relationship.

Dustin and his red head

2008-04-11T19:16:00.000-07:00

Dustin was a friend who did a lot of kissing on my couch with a red headed girl of his own. I would watch him, and try to learn as much as I could from what they were doing in the case that I ever decided to do it myself. These lessons have proven occasionally useful.
So, all in all, credit must be given to him because he showed me how to win over a red headed ex-hippie from Seattle, and he taught me what to do with her once she had been won.

My accounting pupil

2008-04-11T19:09:00.000-07:00

Once there was a ninja who counted things very well. He wanted so very much to show off his counting skills that I agreed to stay after work and watch him. He drew things on the board while I dreamed away of the moment when I could be with my red-headed girl again. He would look to me for clarification, and I wouldn't exactly know whether he was right or wrong because I wasn't being very successful at paying attention to him. He said to me, "Wow, you must be really good at taking tests because you don't actually seem to know anything about accounting."

Annie had a birthday shout hooray

2008-04-11T19:01:00.000-07:00

Once there was a girl named Annie who got older. I wanted to do something for her to celebrate all the cool things that she had been able to do because she had lived another year. But I did not desire to celebrate alone. Therefore I called a little red headed girl over to make some cookies with me to take over to Annie. However, I hadn't counted on the fact that the red head couldn't resist a boy who took her to see her friend Annie, or that boy wouldn't be able to resist a girl who mixed cookie dough with her bare hands.

A near-romantic catastrophe or perhaps a near-catastrophic romance

2008-04-07T13:27:00.000-07:00

I had a rather amusing experience Sunday. I would like to tell you about it. So, gather together little ones and listen to Big Bran as he tells you the story of the near-catastrophic romance.

Yesterday, after watching the morning session of conference, I took a little red headed girl and a back pack of stuff for a walk along the Provo River Trail. The red headed girl had a suspicion that there was more involved in this walk than feeding the ducks, but that's okay because I had the same premonition. I packed all the essentials in case of emergency. I had two peanut butter sandwiches, strawberries, baby carrots,and conversation hearts in case of famine. I took some extra bread to calm the possibly carnivorous ducks. And I had sparkles to lure the woman with....

So, we walked down the trail and eventually got to the bridge that leads to the ducks. A bridge for which I will always have special feelings for: I will love it and I will also fear it for reasons which you will soon understand.

We fed the ducks together, but being a sunny Sunday, the ducks had already been well visited. After discovering that they weren't very interested in us, we went over to the gazebo where we fed ourselves upon the strawberries, carrots, and scrumptious peanut butter sandwiches made with beautiful white bread. I then read to her the book, "Lili's Big Day," which is about a little mouse who dreams of being a flower girl but can only realize her fantasies as the flower girl's assistant. We also read, "Heaven is having you" and "Guess how much I love you."

Then we wandered our way to the bridge where I proceeded to tell her the reasons why I adore her. Then I got out my mp3 player with some alien-esque looking speakers. Then I sang her "Till There was you" on the footbridge, and it was most romantic. Lots of people walked behind us and probably thought that I was rather foolish, but I kept singing away (I wasn't about to let the stares of mere humans stop me from realizing my dreams).

Then I pulled out the book "Where the Sidewalk Ends" and read to her the poem, "The Bagpipe that didn't say no" (I thought it would be good to prep her a little bit and to remind her that people shouldn't say no). Then I re-recited part of the poem to her, "I have walked this lonely shore/I have talked to pebbles and to waves/But I've never loved before" Then I got down on one knee and finished the stanza, "Will you marry me dear." She said that she of course would do that.

Then I pulled out a beautiful sparkly thing. I handed the box to her, and she asked if I wasn't going to put it on her finger. I thought, "oh yeah, sure I can do that." However, I'm a bit clumsy, and we were on a bridge over the semi-raging Provo river. Well, on the way to actually being on her finger, I dropped it. It rolled the foot or so towards the edge of the bridge. She stood there aghast. All of my organs flipped around a bit as I saw my entire savings account rolling to its untimely death. But the accountant in me didn't want to have to write such a loss on the books. So, I lunged. How I got from standing to prostrate so quickly is beyond me. The ring rolled off of the bridge itself and onto a metal bar beneath. It was less than an inch away from falling completely when I stopped its course and picked it up and got it on her finger as fast as I could. I told her to please never take it off near moving water again.

I certainly would have jumped in after it, but I wouldn't have found it, and I probably would've ruined my suit. I was so frazzled at this point, and for some reason, she couldn't stop laughing. I didn't find it incredibly funny, and I probably will still fear fear instead of humor when this story is told at our 50th wedding anniversary.

A woman who had seen the whole affair came over and took some pictures of us. And we walked back to the car and began our very exciting first day of fiance-ness.

In any case, we are most happy. I love her so much, and I feel quite lucky to have her in my life.

Perhaps a near-catastrophic event would be good for all of us.

My birthday

2008-03-28T15:48:00.000-07:00

Yay! Yesterday was my birthday, and I became officially as old as that little red headed girl that I like so much. I guess if you are being particular, I will never be quite as old as her, but in integers, we are the same.

She gave me many cool things. She gave me a watch, and it tells the right time and everything. After not having a watch for three weeks now, this is a much needed blessing. Now if I get hit by a bus, I'll have a greater chance of having a piece of metal fly into my artery and stopping me from bleeding to death! Yay!

She also gave me lots of great dental hygiene things. She gave me a battery operated toothbrush, some floss, and some fun toothpaste. My ex-roommate happened to be in the room when I got home. When I told him what I got, he told me that it was a very bad sign that the person who was kissing me lots was giving me dental hygiene stuff. But I like to believe that this isn't why she was giving it to me. I have been working so hard to brush my teeth lots and lots since we have started dating. And I think I've been successful.............

As far as the floss goes, this is going to take some bravery. I don't really know how to floss. Dare I mention this on a blog? Um, well here it goes. I've never really flossed, ever. I've maybe attempted like 4 times over the last 23 years.

My family gave me a really cool cheese cutter from IKEA. It was some devilish looking prong things on top. I'm not sure why those are there. But I'm way excited to have my very own cheese cutter.

Today at work, they had cake and a card for me. The card had lots of great things written on it. One of my favorite ladies that works there however wrote something a little strange. I couldn't read all of the words, but it seemed to have something to do with me looking good in a pink Paris Hilton shoulder bag. Maybe I should ask her what she meant and maybe look into acquiring one. It would go great with my shoes, I'm sure.

Oh, and never forget that Xister gave me that awesome book about grammar that I will someday have time to read.

So, all in all, my birthday was very, very happy. I just wanted to let you know that.

My Quest for Dangly Earrings

2008-03-25T17:04:00.001-07:00

So, as of Monday, I have officially been dating an amazing girl for a month. Wowie, I've never thought that anyone would put up with me for a whole month. I've been especially surprised with this particular relationship which was not planned to last longer than 3 days. So I felt it worth celebrating. Thereby, Monday, I set on a crusade to find something nifty to show this girl how much I like that she's been my girlfriend for a whole month. I thought about googling the phrase, "sparkly things," (I do like things that sparkle) but I didn't think that this would end up being very useful. But I remembered a post on her blog which led me in a direction.

After work, I left straightway for the mall. Unfortunately, when I arrived at the mall, I remembered how terrified I am of shopping. But I knew that it was the time to face the unbeatable foe. For if I am to be worthy of such red hair, I must not shade my visage at the prospect of a salesman offering his help. So I entered.

I found myself surrounded by many, many stores that contained dangly earrings, and even more which contained a variety of sparkly things. I felt a little overwhelmed, but I dived right in and looked around. I chose to avoid the small kiosks in the center of the walkways because it is almost sure that the lonely, bored person in the center of that space will start talking to you. I decided that I would only enter the bigger stores with few salespeople and at least a couple other customers. Then bam, my eyes were instantly attracted to loads of sparklyness in a store window. I saw the price (6999). My first thought: "well $70 bucks is out of a budget for today, but that is a lot of sparkle." Then I realized that there was no decimal point between those nines. My second thought: "Wow, $7,000 is a lot no matter how much it sparkles. And it's a ring, and you've only been dating a month, stupid head."

I refocused my energies to the cause at hand: earrings. I faced fears and entered several scary stories such as Clare's and the most sparkly Clare's Icing. In Clare's Icing, I found a beautiful pair of dangly sparklyness. I was giddy en masse. They were even healthily within my budget. However then a few thoughts popped into my mind:
1. This girl is almost constantly surrounded by very attractive tenors who probably also like shiny things. If one of them starts to pursue her sparkles, then this sorrowful-looking baritone-ish thing is sure to lose his special gal.
2. I don't know that a normal girl can wear such sparkly things all the time. Yes, they're fantastic for occasional "dress like a princess" parties, but I wanted her to wear her present lots and lots.

I decided that I did like them a lot, so I would come back if I didn't find anything else.

The rest of the story isn't that exciting I suppose. I found some more practical earrings, bought them, made her a card, and gave it all to her. However, her "thank you" was most exciting. However a blog probably isn't the place to go into such details.....

Idols

2008-03-25T16:51:00.000-07:00

So, you could say that I'm sort of an idol worshiper. I was horribly reminded of this when I read Annie's recent post. You could say that I worship school. For the last 20 years or so, I have always chosen to put homework or class attendance above family, helping others, social interaction, getting well etc.

But recently, I've found my fixed gaze to slip a bit. Before this semester, I had never missed a lecture in my whole BYU career (except for 3 while I was lying near death in the hospital, and for those I demanded that my mom go to my classes for me). This semester, I've made the decision to never go to my statistics lab, I skipped a whole day of classes to stay home and sleep during a day of sickness, I rarely avoid procrastination, and today I walked out of a class (well just my stats lab which I decided to go to today) to take my girlfriend to the doctor. I don't know if this shift makes me any more righteous, but it certainly feels somewhat healthy to switch up the things I idolize a bit.