Swimming of the Bulls

I hate cold water; hate, hate, hate it I tell you. I hated the swim test at scout camp when I was a kid. While on my mission in Mexico we didn’t have hot water heaters and I since I hated taking cold showers, I learned to lather, rinse, and repeat in 30 seconds flat. I’m certain I looked and sounded a lot like the Tasmanian devil on one of his slobber slinging rampages. It’s a good thing I’m skinny and don’t have much skin to wash. I hate water skiing, jet skiing, surfing, body boarding, and every other type of board-over-water type of activity. If it wasn’t for a little invention called the bikini, I’d never go. Good grief, I’m shivering!

This weekend, I went to Flaming Gorge and we decided to take an afternoon to run the river. When we first got to the river and I stuck my foot in to check the temperature, I nearly cursed out that infernal H20’s mother. And I almost walked on water as we pushed off from the shore. Needless to say, I was bound and determined not to fall in.

Our trip down the river started out okay, and except for my friends sprinkling some water down my back, it was a great time. Fortunately, I was on the fun boat. Unfortunately, those on the boring boat decided to get themselves out of there doldrums by ruining my calm and chasing off my chi. Water fights ensued. Luckily, I was sitting on the tail of the boat, where it is easiest to manipulate its direction, so I continually pointed the front of the boat towards the other raft, regardless of whether we were headed over some rapids or not. (Let’s not kid ourselves; the Green River below Flaming Gorge Dam doesn’t have any rapids at all, just a few speed bumpy ripples and some boulders to get high centered on.) The two girls sitting in the front of our raft were drenched to the bone. It was awesome! We also had better rowers, so we outran them for a while.

As we neared the take out, the other boat was frustrated with me using our girls as shields. They were able to sidle up to the front of our raft and grab hold. My buddy, who outweighs me by 50 pounds, crouched down in a Carl Lewis and began to charge. As he bull rushed me down the length of our raft, passing down the middle between the two girls and my two buddies with nostrils flaring, I stood up and braced myself. He lowered his shoulder, I swiveled my hips, and “Boom!” he flew right over the side. I raised my arms in triumph just like Nitro from the American Gladiators. He somehow managed to grab onto the side rope and as I went to finish him off, my two friends decided to rebel in mutiny and try to throw me over. As we fought and struggled, and pulled hair and bit legs, with my foot caught in a fishing net, scratches up and down my arms, and a few bruises from oar handles, I looked up from the bottom of that raft and wondered how it was physically possible for a dust cloud to form on the back of a drenched raft floating down the river, but it did. When the dust settled, I was still on the raft, King of the Mountain. One of my littler friends decided to take the chicken’s way out and swim around the back of our raft and pelt me with cups full of water, so by the time we got to the dock, I was as wet as anyone. But that didn’t matter, because the adrenaline helped ward off the cold and victory was mine.

Kung Fu Hachoo

Today at work I found this file that I wrote last year when I was first going to try making a blog. I couldn't figure out how to blog at the time, so I didn't post it. But now that I have a blog, I thought I'd throw it in here, because I thought it was kind of funny to read it again. Here it is:

I created this blog so I can post a comment on my nephew Mason’s blog. Mason and his parents are currently in Vietnam adopting a little baby girl named Lucy. All three of them have been keeping blogs to inform the rest of us back in the States of their progress. Today I read Mason’s blog and found out that he was a little scared of a man they found in their hotel room asleep. For several years now when I’ve gone to his house, he has karate chopped and kung fu kicked me until I’ve hobbled around like Phil Jackson. Aren’t I at all more scary that a passed out drunk? Sometimes I wish I wasn’t just a nice guy and that I could be mean and ferocious, like a wolverine or a hot girl who finds me hanging out on her lawn.

I’m the crazy uncle who sits quietly in the corner until dessert time so I can elbow my way through a crowd of children to be first in line for cake. I may, or may not, also be overly protective of my original action figure of Blue Tooth Tony from the Cosmic Sacred Death cartoon series of the late 1980’s. But I have no choice. If it is taken out of its original packaging it loses all of its value. Besides, I already have my Volcanic Zombie Flesh Eater costume picked out for the 23rd Annual Plutonian Action Figure and Cartoon Convention in Reno, Nevada, and if I don’t have my originally preserved copy of Blue Tooth Tony I won’t be able to impress Super Gazer Goth Girl. Last year I was standing in line for my free sample of Albuterol when she pushed through the line right in front of me. She smiled at me and touched my arm. It was magical. I really think it is meant to be. That smile pulled me in just like the Death Star’s tractor beam when it pulled in the Millennium Falcon in Star Wars Episode 4. Those white teeth shone through the black lipstick like sunlight through rain clouds. Zultan!

Ok, none of that is true; accept that part about the cake. In reality I have sat in a box for the last 4 years staring at a computer monitor. I’m quite certain that the pixilation is causing me to redevelop the lazy eye I had in my youth. If they were to spread newspaper under my chair and throw a food pellet in my inbox at noon, I would officially be a hamster, a 30-year-old lazy eyed hamster.

Holy Whoa! This is a train wreck. It’s a good thing that no one is likely to ever read this or I may very well be required by law to take therapy . . . . again. Well there I am, I’m all signed up and ready to blog. If I return to this site and see two profile views, I will wonder who on earth you were. In my mind I will hope you were Jessica Biel and that you found me because we secretly are the only two people on earth who truly “get” the genius of Daniel Day Lewis’ character portrayal of William Cutting. You, and John McEnroe. I don’t know why. I just think John McEnroe is cool. Who else can get away with putting a head band over an afro, wearing nutter shorts in public, and screaming at the top of his lungs, “You cannot be serious”. Now that’s a man’s man.

PS – If you are Billy Bob McGraw from Mobile Alabama and you are looking for the guy from the local NRA office because he keyed your 1984 Camero, I’m not him. But if you happen to know Super Gazer Goth Girl can I have her number?

Of Chalkboards and Fingernails

There is a place of horrendous emotional agony and self confidence mutilation reserved only for those individuals nice enough to be trapped underneath the sexually suffocating glass ceiling of casual camaraderie. Somewhere whose long forgotten, one-and-done first date populace unwantingly echoes the refrain, "Fifty bones for a platonic a-frame embrace? You’ve got yourself a deal Baby!" Yep, I'm talking about a little place called The Friend Zone. And yours truly, Mr. Nicest of the Nice and Sweetest of the Sweet, am mayor of said local and I rule over my people with a timid fist and a shy demeanor. All those who desire are welcome to walk over me and stab me in the back on their way to citizenship. You will no longer find me in my office at city hall, but in the ICU at the local hospital, prescribed to heavy bed rest because of a chronic case of Big Brother Syndrome, with a hetero gauging thermometer in my mouth and a bed pan near the window that pitches instead of catches.

The Friend Zone has muddy grey streets, brown lifeless parks without a blade of grass or petal of a flower, and the architecture is entirely subterranean ensuring we are all firmly entrenched in the cellar. At night, no man dares wander the streets, nor even lift the hatch to his bomb-shelter-esk abode, because the ghouls of "muffed dates", skeletons of "missed opportunities", and zombies of "bad decisions" drop from the hills with pitchforks of “discouragement” and “burnt out” torches on an all night death march of terror. As dawn approaches, they laugh their way back to wherever they came from, arm in arm, with catcalls over their shoulders of “I’m so glad we’re friends” and “You’re just like my brother”. The pain of their wailings is indescribable.

Occasionally during the daytime, my friends will gather around my sickbed like Dorothy with the Scarecrow, Lion, and Tin Man, as we discuss new strategies and tactics for making it out of this hellish dimension. Just the other day my friend was telling me of a place he reached where small rays of sunshine actually broke through the storm clouds, and I incredulously asked, “So you mean to tell me that the sign by that trail actually said, ‘She touches your leg’”. At that moment a second friend broke in and told me of a similar place he had seen, where a leaf had been growing on the tree, and etched in the truck thereof was the phrase, “Second Date”.

Those urban myths were like a revelation of hope, a glimmer of possibility, a flash of encouragement, and whisper of potential. It was enough that I left the hospital and returned to my home to make plans of escape. Soon, I will clasp on my shimmering armor of apprehension, strap down my helmet of halitosis, clutch onto my shield of virginity, and raise my stammering sword of indecisiveness and venture out into the unknown in daily repeated attempts to break through the friendship quarantine. Wish me luck!

Sincerely,
Mayor of The Friend Zone (Or should it be the First Little Nancy Boy?)

PS - Please, if I am unable to beat back the beasts and make it out alive; give my belongings to Glandless Gilford, who, in spite of his front butt, has been a consummate professional and trusted confidant on my legislative committee.

Fashion vs Style

My personal opinion is that a girl's "beauty" depends more upon how she carries herself and her attitude than what she wears. I’ve seen girls who are far more pretty wearing a tee shirt and a beanie than another girl who is wearing hundreds of dollars of the latest fashion after spending hours on her hair and makeup in some gaudy salon. So, when I came across this quote in a book that I’m reading, I laughed, and then read it again, then smiled, and then read it again. And since I need some fresh material for my blog, I thought I’d post it here to share with all of you. Besides, the way it is written in this quote is more eloquent than I could ever say it.

“Style is something you can only possess in and of yourself-it’s originality, attitudinal distinction physicallized. Whereas fashion is just a bunch of assholes telling you how to dress and in fact conduct yourself in every area.”

- Lester Bangs, “The Grooming of David Johansen”, The Village Voice, September 3, 1979

Waddle Yogging

For a while now, I’ve been trying to talk myself into getting into jogging, or it could be yogging with a soft J, but whatever. I’m not sure why I’ve had this urge. Maybe it’s because I feel old and fat, or maybe it’s because my brother and his wife are world class athletes and they have inspired me. Perhaps it’s because the last two girls that have broken my heart were runners and I want to be more like them or have a chance to meet a third equally as extraordinary person. It could also be that I have too much time on my hands and I need something to fill the time. Whatever the reason, I bought some running shoes this Saturday and decided to take my first run tonight.

Rather than run along thirteenth east in the middle of rush hour with my shirt off, like so many of the runners that annoy me do, I decided to run along a trail that is near my office. It wraps around the Swaner Nature Preserve, winds through the neighborhood east of the Canyons Ski Resort, and then heads into downtown Park City past the McPolin Barn. I’m not sure where it goes from there, because that’s as far as I made it. After tying on my new shoes, I took off out of the gates like a bat out of hell. Two hundred yards later, I stopped running and had to walk. For a while I would sprint two hundred yards and then walk another bill. I soon came up to a really hot girl in sweats and a pink camisole that was walking her dogs. To impress her, I sprinted past her like white lightening and continued to trot my stuff until I was safely out of sight around the bend. At that point I doubled over in pain and began to wheeze like Boots when he coughs up the fur ball in Shrek Two. Once I regained my composure and popped my eyeball back in its socket, I looked up to see a mirage of welcomed relief in the form of a park with a drinking fountain and restrooms.

I entered the restroom and coughed up a long-term tenant from some seldom used recess of my pulmonary. Somehow looking at that milky white membrane through dancing white stars in my vision sparked inside of me an epiphany; there is more ways to run than the way you would being the wing on a 3-man fast break or while stretching a single into a double. After leaving the park, I began to slow myself down a bit, kind of trotting and waddling like a penguin, creating the illusion that I was running, but never actually taking both feet airborne simultaneously. It felt somewhat odd, and I felt somewhat femy, but I suddenly began to understand how to do this whole yogging stuff. As I reached the barn with only one walking spell, I felt I was doing much better. My heart rate slowed to that of a gerbil, and my breathing no longer sounded like a party favor. I actually made it all the way back to the park without a break. As I regained cognitive thought, I realized that I could probably speed things up a bit, but then realized that I had pulled so many muscles in my lower extremities that I was already maxing my hindered range of motion anyway, so I just continued. When I finally reached my car again, I instinctively reached out for a walker that I have not yet purchased. My feet hurt, my legs were sore, I had pulled both my groin muscles, I was seeing in white and a dull grey, my face felt like I had had a violent reaction to a bee sting, my tongue would no longer fit in my mouth, and my jaw was somehow popped out of joint. I tried to stretch a bit and then got back in my car. To add insult to injury, I looked in my rear view mirror and noticed that the wind had blown my hair into an 80’s do. Overall, I ran for 90 minutes, so I at least had to have run a couple of miles. Not bad for my first time in ages. I’ll have to give this special kind of torture another chance.

My Tagline

Job's I've had (starting at the beginning):
* Making dad Mac and Cheese so he’d give me a dollar twenty five out of his change jar to get me into the local swimming pool.
* Filling mom’s car up with gas, so I could keep the change. I seemed to always over squeeze to some-odd dollars and 1 cent.
* Mowing grandma’s lawn.
* Picking vegetables on a farm for pesos per truck load.
* Janitor at Bountiful Power.
* I cut down trees. Actually, I loaded the truck while the owner used the chainsaw.
* Graveyard gruntwork at Blue Cross Blue Shield.
* Bookstore Cashier.
* Legal Runner for a peg-legged lawyer.
* Bank Teller.
* Underwiter.
* Landlord.
* More Underwriting.
* Good grief! I haven’t done anything that actually takes talent, know-how, or skill.

Movies I'd watch over and over again:
* Lost in Translation
* Pulp Fiction
* Kill Bill
* Goodwill Hunting
* Garden State
* The Matrix Trilogy
* Almost Famous
* Kung Fu Hustle
* Riding Giants
* What? R-rated shows are just better.

Guilty Pleasures
* R-rated movies I guess.
* LAN Parties
* Live Music

Places I have lived
* Bountiful, Utah
*Oaxaca Mexico
- Oaxaca City
- Huatulco
- El Espinal
- Tehantepec
- Huajuapan
- Nochixtlan
- Oaxaca City
* Salt Lake City, Utah

Shows I enjoy:
* The Office
* Lost
* Entourage

What are the first things I thought when I met my wife:
* I wonder if she’ll give me her number, hmm, nope.
* I wonder if she’ll give me her number, hmm, nope.
* I wonder if she’ll give me her number, hmm, nope.
* Multiplied.

Places I have been on vacation.
* Idaho
* Oregon
* Chicago
* Dallas
* Stockholm
* Estonia
* Finland
* Rosarito
* San Diego
* Las Vegas
* Huntington
* Los Angeles
* Oahu
* Phoenix/Mesa/Tempe

Body Parts I've Injured.
* Broke my Arm.
* I'm pretty sure I've broken a few fingers.
* Dang near electrocuted myself a couple of times.
* I took a line drive off my shin this year while pitching in softball. I still have a dent in my leg.
* Stepped on a nail.
* Face planted in the middle of a mosh a few times.
* Almost bit my finger off once.
* I got shingles on my face and didn't want to pay for pain killers.
* Does sharting count?

Favorite Foods.
* Grapes
* Ice Cream
* Spinach
* Steak
* Broccoli

Websites I visit daily.
* finance.yahoo.com
* deseretnews.com
* espn.com
* sltrib.com

Nicknames I’ve had.
* Deaner
* Dingo
* Dino
* Dean the Machine
* Deanie Weenie
* Moonlight
* Honkey
* Honkeylicious
* Dean of the Ladies
* Clark Kent
* El Gran Elder
* Uncle Dean