Toothbrushing at Work

I was driving to lunch the other day and I was listening to Jim Rome as he was ripping on guys that brush there teeth at work and keep a toothbrush in their desk drawers. Well, guess what? I do that! And I don’t really understand what’s wrong with it. Do you get annoyed if a coworker brushes their teeth after lunch? I really don’t want to be the annoying guy in the office, but I also don’t want to smell like a Subway Sandwich all afternoon. I kind of feel like someone told me I'm the stinky kid in class.

Narrow Margins?

I need a new car. I kind of like this one that costs $12,875, so I was looking at financing for it. So, I can get a loan for 4.4% if I put down 30%, so my loan would be for $9,013, cost me $205 per month, and $833 in total interest over the life of the loan. So, if instead of paying cash for the car I get the loan and put the extra $9,013 in a bank account earning 3.0% interest, I would earn a total of $1,148 in interest and be ahead $315 at the end of the 48 months. Nice! No wonder we have a financial crisis.

Sometimes

Sometimes I wonder
Why Life is so tough
Or ponder if it’s only me
Who is having it rough

I see so many others
Who fall so easily in love
Or have little children
Who run to the door for a hug

I drive past lots of houses
That are warm and friendly
And wonder if I’ll ever
Afford such a luxury

All of my friends at work
Have successes so often
And I wonder if I’ll even
Ever earn a promotion

I have applied to school
But just got turned back
To wonder what it was
That they found that I lacked

But I can’t help but be happy
To smile and whistle as I go
Because of my certainty
In a principle that I know

That God is a just God
To both the bond and the free
The rich and the poor
And, yep, even to me

And the test we are all living
Will push each of us to the limit
So it is just as hard for everyone
If you think on it for a minute

And if the experiences we have
For everyone are equally rough
Then on a personal level
It won’t seem quite as tough

Our thoughts will no longer
Drift inward on us
But to everyone on earth
Both the evil and the just

And how we can help
To brighten someone’s day
Or lift another’s burden
And send them on their way

We’ll strive to become
Like that one perfect being
To lift those around us
With no concern to be seen

And instead of craving status
We’ll realize deep within
That true happiness comes
From helping someone grin

Reloaded

I love the Matrix series. Besides having some killer action sequences with unique cinematography, it also has sophisticated flowing dialogue. I watched the second show in the series the other day and can’t seem to stop thinking about one little piece. It starts when the Oracle offers Neo a piece of candy.

The Oracle: Candy?
Neo: Do you already know if I'm going to take it?
The Oracle: Wouldn't be much of an Oracle if I didn't.
Neo: But if you already know, how can I make a choice?
The Oracle: Because you didn't come here to make the choice, you've already made it. You're here to try to understand why you made it. I thought you'd have figured that out by now.
Neo: Why are you here?
The Oracle: Same reason. I love candy.

Do you think that’s how it really works? Are the choices we make in life already decided and we’re just here to experience it all? Or can we actually shift our destiny at each fork in the road? The former seems logical to me. How else could God be all knowing and fit us into the great puzzle in our perfect spot or know our wants, needs, and desires before we even know them ourselves if he doesn’t already know us so well that he knows what we’ll decide before hand? But still, it doesn’t feel very comfortable to know that my reservation is already set in stone. I don’t know. What do you think? It’s been boggling me.

Hold the Juice Box

On Monday I went to an event where I put together a 72-hour emergency kit. Yesterday, I ate the whole thing for lunch and was still hungry. I don’t know how a granola bar, beef jerky, a fun-sized Snickers, and a juice box is going to last me for 72 hours. I ate more in one meal when I was six! But apparently one juice box is still enough to make me pee. Doh!

Wet the Bed?

Ok, get this one. Most mortgages are set up so that you make a monthly payment to the mortgage every month and it slowly gets whittled away until you have paid off the loan. So, to throw out some hypothetical numbers, it would look something like this:

Loan Amount: $200,000
Total Payments: $479,018
Total Interest: $279,018
Tax Savings: $83,705
Out of Pocket: $395,312
Years until paid: 30 Years

Well, most of us have our dumb little checking accounts that we use to buy groceries with, use the ATM machine, etc. What if we could open a Home Equity line against our homes that is large enough to pay off the entire mortgage on the homes; and then convince the bank to open a checking account that would automatically sweep against the line? Sweep, meaning that if we wrote a check it would add to the loan balance and if we made a deposit it would lower the loan balance. Then, you could close that dumb little checking account and deposit the money in the sweep account. Assuming that you have an average checking account balance of $5,000, the new numbers would look like this:

Loan Amount: $200,000
Total Payments: $441,761
Total Interest: $246,559
Tax Savings: $73,968
Out of Pocket: $367,793
Years until paid: 27.6

So nothing would really change in your daily spending habits, but you would save $27,519 and pay your mortgage off in over 2 years less time. Now, we all have that dumb rainy day fund as well (or we should). Why not apply that to the sweep account also? You could draw on the line if that rainy day ever did show up, so why not? So let’s say we apply that $5,000 checking account and another $10,000 from our rainy day fund. Then the new numbers would look like this:

Loan Amount: $200,000
Total Payments: $381,884
Total Interest: $196,173
Tax Savings: $58,852
Out of Pocket: $323,032
Years until paid: 23.92

So, you would save $72,281 and pay off the loan six years faster. And you wouldn’t have to change any spending habits or anything. Those dumb little accounts we hold are just getting chewed up by inflation anyway. Why not put them to work?

"Borrowing money is like wetting your bed in the middle of the night. At first all you feel is warmth and release. But very, very quickly comes the awful, cold discomfort of reality." – Elizabeth Gilbert

Mr. Gullible

I get a lot of forwards every day, emails filled with non-productive content, such as jokes about lazy husbands, or videos of kids doing stupid things, or slide shows with poems and flowery fields that are meant to make you cry, or news articles about unstoppable gas prices, etc, etc. Sometimes these emails are filled with outrageous content that is entirely false. Other times it is genuine stuff. And sometimes it seams real, but isn’t. I’ve been known to get tricked into believing that emails are real when they really weren’t. Yesterday was my most gullible of email moments to date. A video showed up in my inbox that showed people using cell phones to pop popcorn. I’m so paranoid about what cell phones are doing to my brain that I believed it really worked. In fact, I went to the store and purchased popcorn to give it a try. And I didn’t just try it out at home, but I took it to work and convinced a couple of my coworkers to use their cell phones to give it a try with me. I even had a few more people from my department as an audience. It didn’t work of course, and I was left to bemoan my failure in front of everyone. I tried to use the excuse that maybe it had to be microwave popcorn to work. One member of the peanut gallery decided he’d make things worse by asking me if I’d checked out this experiment on Snopes. Well, I did after he suggested it, and sure enough it turned out to be a complete fabrication. Everyone spent the rest of the afternoon making jokes at my expense about how I should try other household chores with my cell phone, like ironing my shirt or whitening my teeth. I should stamp gullible on my forehead before going out in public.

Tis the Season

Yesterday was the Mountain West Conference media day, which is kind of like the day after Thanksgiving when it is officially the Christmas season, but this is even better because it is Football season. This morning I marked every Ute game on my Outlook calendar, the Mountain West Conference 10th Anniversary team was released (5 Utes on the roster), and a lady from my work had a helmet signed by Sione Pouha and the entire Jet’s team. Tis officially the season. Now, I just need to get a couple of days off of work, because the Utes have two Thursday night games and decide which of the road games to go to this year; definitely Utah State, hopefully San Diego State, and maybe a third one in Colorado Springs. I’m so excited! All I want for Christmas is a Ute victory in Ann Arbor! Go Utes!

After I wrote the above, I began to wonder whether my fascination with Ute football is bordering on obsession. So, I decided to add up the time I spend watching Ute football. If I go to the game, I probably spend about eight hours with the tailgating and everything, and if I watch the game at home, it probably only takes about four hours out of my life. If I go to eight games a year and watch four on the television, then that is a total of 76 hours per season. Now, if I spend 16 hours a day awake that is 5,840 hours a year and the 76 hours I spend watching Ute football is only 1.3% of my waking life. One would probably have to spend upwards of 50 hours a month doing something to consider that something an obsession, so I think I’m in the clear. Of course, that doesn’t count all the other things I do related to Ute football, such as reading newspaper articles, listening to talk radio, and debating around the water cooler, but I think I can chalk those activities up to multitasking. I may be a superfanatical Ute supporter, but I’m still a productive member of society. Feeling justified, I’ll shout it again; Go Utes!

Quel es? ... Ahhh ... la belle femme skunk fatale!! Tch-tch.

I went rock climbing for the first time on Friday, something I have been avoiding for years, because I was deathly afraid of it. It’s not that I’m afraid of heights; it’s that I’m afraid of my ability to hang onto the wall. First of all, I don’t exactly have a lot of upper body strength. To be honest, some of my shirts button right over left instead of left over right. But mostly, I don’t have a lot of hand strength to hold onto the wall. I’ve always pictured rock climbers as having vice grips on the ends of their wrists. But on Friday, I was finally talked into it, mostly because I didn’t want to be the only one not to go. I learned a lot about climbing that day. The first thing I learned was that the shoes really hurt. In fact, after I laced them up I no longer had any fear; I just wanted to get it over as fast as I could to get that special kind of torture off my feet. I scurried to the top as fast as I dared, repelled to the bottom, and ripped those things off of my poor little patos. Once the pain diminished to an aching throb, I realized that I had made it and started to feel pretty good about myself. I was amazed to learn that rock climbing is done mostly with the legs and that you don’t have to do the equivalent of a thousand pull ups by hanging onto a crack. Another thing I learned was how different climbs are rated, and that the one I had just struggled with was aptly named “bunny slopes”. I no longer felt very good about myself. Later that afternoon we went to a more “moderate” climb. To me, it seemed like we were trying to shimmy our way up the side of a rock that had a face as smooth as a mirror. I did my best to hold back the tears as I laced on those foot sized iron maidens and then began to climb. Do you remember the old Warner Brothers cartoon about Pepe Le Pew chasing around Penelope Pussycat? And do you remember the part when the cat would eventually get cornered and would try to climb up a sheer wall while the skunk stood at the bottom reading poetry and declaring his love? Well, I was like that cat. I tried to scratch and scrape and claw my way up the wall, while the girl at the other end of the rope voiced her approval. But in reality, I just kept slipping, swinging into the wall at the end of the rope, and bumping my knuckles, arms, legs, head, buttocks, you name it. Each time I slipped, the girl at the other end of the rope must have given a heave so that I was a bit higher on the wall when I regained my grip (lather, rinse, repeat). By the time I got about half way up, I started to feel like the belayer was just hoisting a piano up to the fourth floor, so I decided to tap out. I give props to rock climbers with sufficient technique to rest their entire weight on a bump of rock the size of a pea.

Farmer's Market

Salt Lake City hosts a Farmer’s Market every Saturday morning in one of its downtown parks. I went this weekend with visions of finding vine ripe tomatoes, new mushrooms, fresh oregano, and tender basil that I could take home, put it all in a pot, and reduce it to a killer marinara sauce, or as I like to call it, “gravy”. (“Hey-yo, wait-uh, whez duh gravy fo’ my braciole?”) I was excited to look through some fresh home grown produce. When I first got there, I saw a quartet playing some music; which wasn’t all that bad, but I would have expected the band at a Farmer’s Market to be filled with banjos, fiddles, and a guy blowing across the opening of an empty jug. I didn’t mind, though, since I had my mind set on finding fresh tomatoes. I looked all over that park trying to find them, but instead, all I found were booths and booths of things like jewelry, tie-died tee shirts, scarves, pottery, paintings, and even didgeridoos. They even had a row of booths filled with fast food chains trying to sell burritos and ice cream cones. The closest thing I could find to vegetables was some small seedling plants that someone was selling out of the back of their truck over by the curb. What I thought would be a fun farmer’s market turned out to be the worst flee market ever. They even had prices on all of their goods so that I couldn’t haggle. Boring! I probably would have paid money for something I didn’t even want if I could have talked them down on the price. Call me back when the “farmer’s” market decides to sell herbs and vegetables, or at least offer pony rides.

Larping

I went to dinner with a couple of friends on Saturday and half way through our meal a large party came in and sat down next to our table. That’s not that interesting normally, but this group had just finished a “Larp” session and they were still in costume and character. (Google “Larp” if you don’t know.) Needless to say, it’s difficult to keep a straight face when the guy in the elf suit at the next table says “Give me a pint of your finest ale good sir”, instead of just ordering a coke. Or even worse, when a couple from the group has to break away and have a serious conversation in a vacant booth about why the cleric hadn’t healed the warrior at a critical point in a major battle sequence. Now, I admit that when I was a kid I used to have sword fights with sticks and we had life points and pretended that half of us were goblins, but I think there is a big difference from what I did then and what this group was doing on Saturday night. First, I never dressed up in a costume or got into character, but most importantly, I was ten years old. Not to be judgmental because everyone has to have their hobbies and to each his own, but I find this particular subculture extremely fascinating to observe. In fact, they are coming out with a movie documentary about it, which will be a must see.

Workman's Comp?

There are so many possible twists to this story that the best way I can think to say it is exactly how it is. (I know, that's not typical for me.) I went to my buddy's summer work party tonight and the crowning activity of the evening was to have all the employees gather in a field so that a few could launch water balloons (a few filled with money) at them from about 50 yards away. I laughed so hard while I watched these poor people get pelted. Listen closely and you can hear the balloon hit.

Million Dollar Ideas

Why is it that when someone sits down on an office chair it makes a sound like a whale coming up for air? I’m tired of my office sounding like the collective blow holes of a migrating school of hump backs. Maybe I should invent a silent office chair. Oh yea, that and a gizmo to mute the Kenny G that is intruding everyone’s private lives from the cubicle two doors down. I’m sure I could convince several of my coworkers to put an empty fish bowl over their heads if I told them it was a silencing helmet for lame music. What’s the number to the patent office? Or better yet, what’s the number to NBC? Can you imagine Stanley sitting down on a chair that goes “Spooossshhhh”, or Dwight convinced that a fish bowl could drown out Jim’s voice? Being a writer for NBC sitcoms sounds a lot better than being a loan writer. Suh-weet!

Wasatch Back 2008

Star Search

I got my picture taken with a minor celebrity this weekend. Does anyone know who she is?

Cirque de Ferguson

I went hiking up Ferguson Canyon with some friends last night; a canyon I didn’t even know existed until yesterday. We made it about a mile before getting lost. After a few dead ends and some perilous situations, we decided to cross the stream and see if we could see the trail on the other side. Well, when I say “we”, I mean the two girls with those chaco/tiva thing-a-ma-jigs did while the rest of us waited. They indeed found a trail, and I, being the chivalrous type, asked if one of them wouldn’t mind carrying me across the stream so that I wouldn’t have to get my feet wet. One of them did, but she wouldn’t carry me like a bride across the threshold, so I compromised for an old fashioned piggy back ride. It worked like a charm. But when she went back to carry some of the others, the rest of the group decided they had had enough and headed back for the car. The girl that carried me went with them. That left me and the other trail blazing girl on the other side. We decided to ditch them and see where the trail took us. After a mile or so of some uphill and switch backs, we made it to a cool view of the city. But at that point we decided we better head back before the rest of the group got mad enough to make us shell out for cab fair. When we got back to the stream crossing, I was able to talk this other girl into giving me a piggy back ride across as well, and I was feeling pretty good about my negotiation skills. A little distance down the trail we came to another stream crossing. It was shallower and I could have easily played Frogger across the stones to the other side, but I was having too much fun with the piggy back rides not to get a third. I must have been pressing my luck though, because after a step or two, she tripped. As she fell to her hands and knees, I outstretched my arms and legs like Tom Cruise in mission impossible right before he hits the weight sensitive floor and triggers the alarm. I, on the other hand, didn’t care about setting off the alarm; I just didn’t want to get wet. Miraculously, when she came to a rest on all fours, I was teetering on her back like a turtle shell. This poor girl was getting drenched in the current, her headlamp had fallen off and was washing downstream leaving us in the dark, and all I could think about were the odds that this girl could get back up with me still on her back. As I petitioned if she was okay, I wondered if I dare follow that up by asking if she had ever dead lifted 180 lbs, when suddenly my glasses started to slip off my face. I knew I was doomed since I had to give up my balancing act to keep my specs from falling into the drink. We laughed about it on the last walk to the cars with my shoes split splatting the whole way.

To pay early or not to pay early

I ran a model that measured the difference between making extra payments to a mortgage to pay it off early and making the minimum payment and letting the mortgage go the full term. It also assumes that the one letting the mortgage go the full term, invests an amount equivalent to the extra payment made by the one paying the mortgage off early; and that the one paying off the mortgage early begins to invest an amount equal to his mortgage payment plus the extra amount applied to principal as soon as the mortgage is fully paid off. Therefore, both sides of the equation have the exact same out-of-pocket monthly expense for the full 30-year period. My assumptions were:

Tax Bracket: 30%
Market Return: 11%
Mortgage Rate: 6%
Principal Balance: $300,000
Mortgage Term: 30 Years
Extra Payment/Mo: $899 (or an extra 50%/mo)

Here are the results of the one who lets the mortgage go full term:

Interest Expense: ($347,514.57)
Tax Savings: $104,254.37
Investment Return: $2,522,176.92
Ending Balance: $2,278,917.72

And, here are the results of the one who pays off the mortgage early:

Interest Expense: ($139,175.62)
Tax Savings: $41,752.69
Investment Return: $1,485,569.51
Ending Balance: $1,388,146.58

I believe that the primary proponent to paying off a mortgage early is peace of mind. Believe me; I know how having debt can weigh down on your shoulders. But is that peace of mind worth $890,770.15? It very well could be.

I think the key in all of this is to make sure that, after you’ve signed up for that mortgage, there is a surplus of discretionary income with which you can do as you see fit. Otherwise, there will be a whole percentage of the population who are teetering on the edge, so the government won’t be able to raise interest rates, so the value of the dollar will continue to plummet, so the cost of oil will continue to skyrocket (among other reasons, such as increasing demand, and a fairly inelastic supply . . . . does three make a perfect storm?), so it costs me $4 for a gallon of gas and $12 for a hamburger. Oh wait, that already happened. I don’t know about your CPI, but mine’s not in check. (Would that be the DPI – Dean’s Price Index?)

The World's Best

Yesterday, Business Week published “The World’s Best Places to Live 2008”. Consultants from Mercer Consulting rated each city on a variety of factors including the level of traffic congestion, air quality, and personal safety reported by expatriates living in more than 600 cities worldwide. I thought the list was pretty interesting, so I thought I would publish the results. Out of the top 20 cities on the list, I’ve only been to one. (How many have you been to?) It looks like I have some sight seeing to do. Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium, Denmark, and the Netherlands are all neighbors. I could knock out 12 of the 19 I haven’t been to in one trip. Then, with a trip to Canada and another one to Australia/New Zealand I would be able to see them all. Of course, the best places to live might not be the same as the best places to visit, but oh well. And, if you’re curious, the first US city on the list was Honolulu at No. 28.

No. 1: Zurich, Switzerland
No. 2 (tie): Vienna, Austria
No. 2 (tie): Geneva, Switzerland
No. 4: Vancouver, Canada
No. 5: Auckland, New Zealand
No. 6: Dusseldorf, Germany
No. 7 (tie): Munich, Germany
No. 7 (tie): Frankfurt, Germany
No. 9: Bern, Switzerland
No. 10: Sydney, Australia
No. 11: Copenhagen, Denmark
No. 12: Wellington, New Zealand
No. 13: Amsterdam, Netherlands
No. 14: Brussels, Belgium
No. 15: Toronto, Canada
No. 16: Berlin, Germany
No. 17 (tie): Melbourne, Australia
No. 17 (tie): Luxembourg, Luxembourg
No. 19: Ottawa, Canada
No. 20: Stockholm, Sweden

The Dark Tower

I read the first line on December 15th on a flight from Salt Lake City to Atlanta. I read the last line yesterday on my couch.

6 Months
174 Days
7 Books
4,505 Pages

Wonderful! Exceptional! Inspriring! I'm officially a Dark Tower junkie. Here is a great quote from one of the last pages in the series.

"There is no such thing as a happy ending. I never met a single one to equal 'Once Upon a Time'. Endings are heartless. Ending is just another word for goodbye."

Rated R

Last night I saw a commercial for the new M. Night Shamylan movie and the biggest selling point of the commercial was “the director who brought you The Sixth Sense and Signs brings you his first R-rated movie” and the R was gigantic on the screen. Not only do I think that the whole rating system is bogus, but to use the rating as a selling point is absurd. Ratings are basically a way to tack a letter grade to a movie to indicate if it is suited for children, adolescents, or adults. When looked at that way, is there any wonder why R-rated movies make the most money? The answer is: because the majority of movie goers are adult. I’m not so mature that I can’t laugh at a guy running around in tighty whities or enjoy a comic book remake, and animation is fascinating, but a movie that not only entertains but challenges my intellect as well is a real winner. My issue with ratings is that they are tacked onto movies by a room of suits somewhere getting paid way too much money to assume that they know the values of individuals everywhere. Wouldn’t it be easier just to disclose what questionable content is shown in a movie? For instance, I would rate Saving Private Ryan a “GV, L” (graphic violence and language) and Titanic a “SC, N, V” (sexual content, nudity, and violence). I would rather see the GV so I can appreciate the cost of my freedom than to see the SC and N just to get my date in the mood. But that’s just my personal opinion; and that’s the idea, that everyone could decide for themselves and parents could decide for their children. And are we all so naive to think that corporate pressure and money aren’t enough to have that room of suits change the rating to what they see fit? But what really gets my goat about this whole commercial, is that they were marketing the rating, some letter generated by that room of suits. Either Mr. Shamylan was targeting the rating, or the big studio distributing his movie is in charge of the advertising, but either way it seems clear that they are simply trying to boost ticket sales by rating it R, so that more adults will go. I realize that the movie industry is in business to make money, but I like living with the illusion that writers and directors make movies because they are in love with the art of cinema. I like to think that they dream up great stories and get great actors and camera men and hair dressers to bring those stories to life. I like to think that they are just as inspired as any painter with his canvas, or writer with her blank sheets of paper. And I hope that they make the movie however they dreamt it and hand it to those suits in the boardroom to give it whatever rating they want because there is no way they would ever change their art, just as Michelangelo would never finger paint a tuxedo onto his statue of David because someone thought it inappropriate. When I hear that they are targeting a rating to boost ticket sales, all it does is scream “SELL OUT”. If all they want for their efforts of making this new movie is money, then I hope it flops.

Blogger's Block

I think I have bloggers block. It probably has a lot to do with my new position (I recently transferred within my company), or more precisely my new location, which is again in a cubicle. My little cubie is right on the corner, so I have people walking by my desk all day long. Furthermore, I believe that my cubicle has taken the place of the office water cooler. People come and lean on, in, and around my cubicle just to shoot the breeze. Inspiration is hard to come by when everyone in the whole office is constantly looking over my shoulder to see what’s on my screen. They don’t intentionally intrude, I’m sure, but it’s hard not to look at something you pass by ten times a day. For example, I’ve alt-tabbed my way around the peepers of about 10 people just writing these few sentences. I miss my little haven where I could drum up blog inspiration without interruption. On the other hand, this new location is probably better for my career.

Oh, by the way, the final numbers from Concert Quench were $48,000 going directly to Care for Cambodia. That amounts to about 48 wells in 48 villages in which people used to have to walk miles just to fetch river water. It will help hundreds to have better health. If you helped spread the word about the concert, or spent money on a ticket, or even just wished us well, then I say thank ya.

Mr. Muscle

I’ve been part of the planning committee for a charity concert that took place the other night. Well, okay, I sometimes went to the meetings and listened. But, they decided to let me be a security guy during the concert anyway. It was a fine job. When I heard they would let me be a security guy, I immediately offered to be the frisker at the front of the girl line. (“You pass ma’am, and your legs are very smooth. Next!”) I thought that I had finally found my life’s calling, until all of my hopes and dreams were shattered when someone told me of a legal loophole prohibiting guys from frisking girls. What a jip! There was no way I was going to frisk the guys without wearing a plutonium suit, so they decided to make me a ticket taker. That went okay for a while until I got in trouble for letting all the cute girls in for free. (“What are you doing? Those ten tickets could have bought a clean well for the sick children! But . . . but . . . did you see her?”) After my first mishap, they decided to put me at the front of the crowd, where all I had to do was stand with my back to the band with my arms folded. Things went well at first until they started to crowd surf. The first little kid that came my way I dropped on his head. (“Oh, quit crying. Just walk it off!”) That was strike one. When I caught a girl surfer, set her down on her feet, and proceeded to frisk her (“You in the glasses, stop it! But boss, she looked like she had a razor blade in her back pocket.”) I got both strike two and three. I was fired from my security position, but they let me keep the t-shirt. I’ve always heard that what a girl really looks for in a guy is “security”, and I just knew that this was my big break. I strutted around the crowd with as much swagger as I could just knowing that my security T-shirt was going to draw them in like chum in a shark pool. At first it didn’t work, so I decided to tap on a girl’s shoulder and introduce myself. She slapped me! I guess she thought I was accusing her of carrying razor blades again.

Okay, so almost none of that was true. I actually was assigned a position outside by the bus.

Birds of a, well, whatever

I work with a guy who has a different sense of humor. For instance, he finds it hilarious to flip people off just out of the blue. I must admit, it makes me laugh whenever I’m typing away at my keyboard and notice the flash of a middle finger out of the corner of my eye. It got me thinking, there are a lot of ways to give someone the bird. (There may be others I’m forgetting. Personally, I don’t usually flip anything off, except for maybe the all too frequent graduate school rejection letter.)

The shy apologetic bird – is the kind when your finger is only half way extended, and only two digits of the finger are distinguishable from the fist. The kind you have to hold down low around your belt, and can’t help but let fly to get something off your chest, but at the same time hope that no one else sees it.

The camouflage bird – is the type when you are agreeing with everything the person is saying, but at the same time you are pretending to scratch your cheek or push up your glasses, of course, with the middle finger. “No, no. That’s not what I meant at all. I was just scratching”.

The gimmick bird – is when the offender makes his hand a prop, like a trumpet, or when they pretend they are blasting down their fingers in a shooting gallery, or imagining their hand as a makeup case as they powder their nose. This one kind of annoys me. What are they doing, trying to be cute and mad at the same time?

The gunslinger bird – this is the classic quick draw, nothing up my sleeve, now you see it now you don’t, flash of the middle finger. The kind you do as you are walking by someone else’s desk, or getting ready to flee in terror from a group of big dudes.

The hello how are ya bird – this is the bird you give with the thumb fully extended. Often the bird is at a slight angle and held up in front of a smirking face, as if to say, “hey there, buddy, I’ve got a call for ya on line one”.

The Big Ben bird – this is the pie in the sky, fully extended, tight fisted, leaning Eiffel Tower exclamation point. It is usually held high above the head in protest of a bad driver or ignorant zoobie and often takes a mother hanging at the wrist to end its well deserved and drawn out duration.

The Hill Billy McGee bird – That guy actually just had four fingers cut off on accident as he worked on his Hemi. “What? You got a problem? No sir, I’s just wavin’ howdy.” It was a disaster when they put McGee on the Girl Scout Float in the Fourth of July parade. No boxes of Thin Mints were sold that year.

Bling

One of my earliest memories is when my family had our picture taken at the Pioneer Village of Lagoon. There was some picture studio there that would let you dress up in old clothes and get your black and white picture taken in front of some saloon backdrop of some kind so that the picture looked like an old tin type. Well, my memory of the occasion was getting dressed up in my cowboy stuff first and then being left alone while the rest of the family retreated into the dressing rooms to step into their spurs and strap on their bonnets. Being left alone, I of course began to cry. Someone that worked there gave me a little toy pistol to shut me up. And boy, did it work! I thought that thing was about the coolest thing I had ever seen. Cocking back the hammer and pulling the trigger kept me occupied for what seemed like forever. Suddenly, a gigantic frying pan of a human hand obstructed the view of the toy I was playing with. Shortly after that the picture must have been taken, because the old family photo that still sits in my mom’s house shows me sitting in my dad’s lap with him covering up my hands (and indeed half of my body) with his own face down palm.

Nine years ago now, my father gave me a ring that he made out of his old Smoke Jumper pin. I remember holding it in my palm, turning it over and over in my fingers, and finding it to be as impressive then as I had found that little toy gun to be when I was a child. I tried to put it on and was shocked to see that it wouldn’t fit on any of my fingers. It would easily slip off of even my thumb. I was reminded of how big this guy once was and was thrilled at the gesture, but because I couldn’t wear it as anything but maybe a bracelet, I was forced to just store it. Well, I’ve finally gotten around to resizing it so I can wear it. They were able to fit a second silver ring inside of my dad’s ring and somehow meld the two to make it just the right size to fit on my middle finger. It took the jeweler two and a half months to complete, (not because it was difficult, but just because they were slow) but it was worth the wait. I think it is cool, way cool.

My Music Library

The top 30 played songs in my I-Tunes Library are:

1. Time Consumer – Coheed & Cambria
2. Speedway – Counting Crows
3. Subterranean Homesick Alien – Radiohead
4. Delirium Trigger – Coheed & Cambria
5. Everything Evil – Coheed & Cambria
6. #41 – Dave Matthews Band
7. As Lovers Go – Dashboard Confessional
8. Mr. Jones – Counting Crows
9. Amy Hit the Atmosphere – Counting Crows
10. The Rain Song – Led Zeppelin
11. Karma Police – Radiohead
12. That’s the Way – Led Zeppelin
13. The Bends – Radiohead
14. Fake Plastic Trees – Radiohead
15. New Slang – The Shins
16. H – Tool
17. Blood Red Summer – Coheed & Cambria
18. D’yer Mak’er – Led Zeppelin
19. Ten Years Gone – Led Zeppelin
20. Round Here – Counting Crows
21. High and Dry – Radiohead
22. Red House – Jimi Hendrix
23. Custard Pie – Led Zeppelin
24. Such Great Heights – The Postal Service
25. 33 – Coheed & Cambria
26. Pictures of You – The Cure
27. Tangerine – Led Zeppelin
28. Bullet Proof – Radiohead
29. Bron-Y- Aur Stomp – Led Zeppelin
30. Kid A - Radiohead

I'm kind of suprised by the results. Some songs made the list that I didn't think would and some that I thought would that didn't.

Trouble with Jars

The guy that sits in the cubicle next to mine at work is one of the top two power lifters in the world for his weight class. Power lifters do only three lifts; the bench press, the squat, and lifting weight from the ground to the height of your waist (whatever that one’s called). He’s not a big guy, probably under six feet in height and only 180 lbs, but he can throw around mass like a fat guy just off a diet throws around bon bons. It’s amazing.

This morning, a lady that we work with turned her chair over to fix a broken wheel. She asked me to help her take off the old wheel so that she could replace it with the new one. I tried to get it off, but thought that there was no way it would actually come off without some special tool to trigger a release of some sort. But I had an idea. I would see if the power lifter who sits next to me could help. He came in and, after looking at the wheel for a moment, popped it right off like a cherry stem.

I was embarrassed. I’ve become “that” guy who, like a little girl, needs help opening his own mayonnaise jars.

Deer in the Headlights

My roommate and his sister recently decided to start a dinner group so that a few people could get together once or twice a month to have dinner and try out new places to eat throughout the city that no one has tried before. I like trying new places to eat and I think it was a great idea. Last night was the first time we got together and we ate at this Middle Eastern place on 9th and 9th called Mazza. It was different, but I liked it.

I also had a blind date that I needed to take care of (not Tony Soprano “take care of”, but just get around to taking out), so I invited (let’s call her) Whatshername to come to our dinner group to kill two birds with one stone. Whatshername was a good sport and agreed to come.

As Roommate and I got to the restaurant, we found Whatshername standing outside waiting for us. (I know what you’re thinking, and yes, I did offer to pick her up, but she preferred to meet us at the restaurant.) The three of us were the first ones there, so we decided to get seated while we waited for the others to show up. We perused the menu for a few moments and soon my roommate’s sister and brother-in-law showed up. In an attempt to be courteous, I said, “Sister and Brother-in-Law, this is Whosherface. Whosherface, this is Sister and Brother-in-Law”. To which Sister and Brother-in-Law respond, “Nice to meet you”, and to which she replies, “It’s nice to meet you too, but my name is actually Whatshername”. After a moment of that deer-in-the-headlights look, my eyes widened in terror at the realization that I got her name wrong. I turned to try to apologize to Whatshername as Roommate falls over on his side in laughter, Brother-in-Law almost falls off his chair roaring, and Sister turns red as she tries her best to hold it in. I made it through as far as “I’m s-“, before beginning to crack up myself.

She was kind enough to laugh it off and not take offense. Still though, it was hilarious. This wasn’t the first time I’ve forgotten my date’s name, but it was the first time I’ve introduced my date using the wrong name. The first one is much better, because you can actually get through a night without having to say someone’s name, unless you have to introduce them to the crowd. And then it is worse, because the whole crowd is there to witness your blunder.

The best part of blind dates is being able to tell people about the train wreck afterwards.

Snap Crackle Pop

I’m currently reading a novel (Wizard & Glass) in which a young girl is forcefully put into a relationship with an older man and one of the things she despises about this older man is his popping knuckles and creaking joints. And I can’t help but wonder if girls really get that minuscule in their analysis to list popping knuckles on the con side of their prospective suitor t-charts; probably so. If guys do, then girls would too. After all, my left knee pops to the rhythm when I walk down the hall. And all this time I thought I was losing out with the girls because of my bad hair, donated wardrobe, slouching posture, and my upper lip that quivers like a slab of bacon on a hot griddle when I’m forced to talk about my feelings. {sigh} Add my popping joints to the list.

Pink Eye

My brother recently told me how he thought that the eye was the window to the soul. Well, I’m currently sitting here with a nasty case of Pink Eye. It is nasty and swollen red, and it hurts, and there are these gross yellow stinging boogers that are secreting from my eyeball. As I am forced to think and type, because my vision is too messed up to read or study, I can’t help but wonder what this says about my own soul. On the one hand, I can’t help but feel grateful that it hasn’t spread to the other eye, at least not yet, and hope that means that although gooberlicious on the outside there might be a diamond in the rough waiting somewhere in the inside. Or maybe I have duel personalities. But on the other hand, I can’t help but feel anger boiling up inside of me thinking that maybe someone thought it would be funny to bear butt fart on my pillow. If that is the case, I swear I’m going to FREAK!

Concert Quench

(I am going to send this out to everyone as an email. What do you think? Will this help get the word out?)

So often we feel that we should do something to help in the fight against poverty, but just as often we simply don’t know what to do to help. Well, I have something that will actually have a real effect in the fight against poverty and it will do so in a fun and entertaining way that will benefit all those involved. It’s a win-win situation! (Don’t worry; I’m not just hitting you up for money.)

Over the past year, I have become involved with a Not-For-Profit called Care for Cambodia (Check us out at: http://www.careforcambodia.org ). My sister-in-law met the parents of the founder of this organization last summer. And through those connections I was able to meet up with the founder and offer my support. Care for Cambodia digs sanitary well systems for villages throughout rural Cambodia to provide clean water to the people of those villages. Once built, the villagers have a stake in maintaining and operating the wells too. We have already built wells for some villages and have given a healthier lifestyle to hundreds, but there is still a ton of work to be done. And now that the first few wells are in the ground and our contacts are in place in Cambodia, all we need to do is to raise more funds to dig more and more wells. Every thousand dollars we raise is enough to put in a new well.

To that end, I would simply like to announce our latest fundraising event. On Wednesday, April 23rd, “Concert Quench” featuring Ben Folds will take place at the Great Saltair with all proceeds going directly to Care for Cambodia. Of course, we will have to pay for the band and venue, which we are attempting to take care of through corporate sponsors, but a complete sell out would do wonders, not only for the people of Cambodia, but also in offering up a wailing good time. I love to go to concerts, and I can honestly say that Saltair is one of my favorite venues. Ben Folds won’t stir up the best mosh pits, but I’m betting the crowd will be filled with hotties absentmindedly swooning to their rock ballads. And for you ladies, I’m sure their will be plenty of those zoobiesque, tight shirted, boy-band types with product in their hair for you to flirt with.

Everyone loves a party, so come out and rock out! And, if by chance you don’t like parties, or concerts, or simply can’t make it, do me a favor and help get some word-of-mouth advertising out there by telling a friend.

Feud

My light switch hates me. And I hate it. You could cut the tension of this mutual vendetta with a knife. I turn my light on and off several times a day, and my light switch thinks it’s funny to shock me with static electricity on about half of those occasions. He’s so smug! It’s gotten to the point where I try to sneak up on him like Elmer sneaking up on Mr. Waskely. After a few fakes of my finger, I try to go in for the flip with the light switch’s head turned, as quickly as pulling out the table cloth from a full setting. Sometimes it works. Other times it doesn’t. It probably seems humorous to picture me sneaking up on him in my underwear in the dark morning in an attempt to turn on the light pain free, but this has gotten personal, and personal feuds are anything but funny. I envy those of you who are able to groggily zombie walk your way to the bathroom. Just remember me as I dart and weave my way through this battlefield of bedroomdome. If light switches had faces, I’d slap that smirk right of his lips!

Tibetan Test

I got this Tibetan Test in my email today and decided to take it. I thought the results were interesting, so I thought I’d post them. The first part of this test gives you a list of five animals and asks you to rank them in order of your favorite. Each animal then has a corresponding portion of your life, and the ranking is supposed to coincide with your own priorities. Here’s the order in which I listed the animals, and what it coincides with.

First Animal: Cow

What it represents: Career

Second Animal: Horse

What it represents: Family

Third Animal: Sheep

What it represents: Love

Fourth Animal: Tiger

What it represents: Pride

Fifth Animal: Pig

What it represents: Money

My interpretation: I don’t know why I ranked these this way, other than still being bitter towards pigs after walking through their stenchy tent at the Utah State Fair this summer. And I think I ranked tigers second to last, because if there were tigers in Africa, they’d probably hide from me just like the lions and leopards did when I visited last month. But I was pleased to see that Pride and Money were at the bottom. My only wish is that I could switch those two, because in my mind Pride is the worst of those five items.

The second part of the test listed five words and you were supposed to answer with the first thing that came to mind after reading the word. Depending on how you answered them, was you’re perspective on some other thing. Below are my answers.

Item: Dog

My Answer: Friend

What it represents: My Own Personality

My interpretation: Yea, thanks for rubbing salt in the wound. I already knew I was stuck in the friend zone, but I didn’t realize that some monk in Tibet knew about it too. My reputation has traveled the world and back again. I bet if I was in a train outside of Prague and I tried to hit on a girl, her reply would be “Oh, I’ve heard of you”.

Item: Cat

My Answer: Sneeze

What it represents: My Partner’s Personality

My interpretation: I think maybe it’s the look that girls often get on there faces when a guy just doesn’t quite clear the minimum bar. You know, the look right before they let loose with an ear shattering “Haa-Chew!”, the one where their eyes roll back in their head and the skin between their eyebrows looks like its being pinched.

Item: Rat

My Answer: Whiskers

What it represents: My Enemies' Personalities

My interpretation: Rats have whiskers, but so do cougars.

Item: CoffeeMy Answer: Stain

What it represents: How I interpret Sex

My interpretation: Yikes! What in the Sam Hill does that mean?! I don’t think I dare venture a guess.

Item: Sea

My Answer: Fresh

What it represents: My Own Life

My interpretation: What I thought of when I first saw the word was that feeling I get every time I go to the ocean; a feeling of being healed, of taking all my dry itchy skin and my cracked dusty lungs and shedding them like a snake skin. I don’t think Fresh is exactly the right word for that, but it is what I wrote. And I don’t know what that is supposed to mean for my own life. Maybe I’m in constant need of healing. Or maybe I am meant to “upholden him that was fallen and strengthen the feeble knees”. Perhaps both.

Sports Stuff

A couple of things I’ve noticed while watching sports lately have bugged me. So, since I haven’t posted in a while, I thought I’d ramble about these two things for a bit.

The first is the way NBA players rub talcum powder in their hands. I just don’t get it. Is it for hygienic purposes? Personally, I don’t get sweaty palms playing basketball, only when I’m trying to call a hottie. And if that’s the reason, why don’t they bathe their head bands in it instead of their palms. Or are they trying to be polite to the other players so they won’t get sweaty hand prints on the back of their jerseys? That seems unlikely, since they throw a knee to the same guy’s teeth on the other end of the court if he tries to take a charge. And I’ve played basketball my whole life, and there is no way that stuff could actually help your grip on the ball. That powdery softness could only, if anything, make things more slippery. I think I would be nervous about a powdery handed defender bodying me up. I guess it’s better than hearing the snap of a rubber glove. But what’s worse, by far, is watching them load up there hand with a gigantic mound of the stuff before checking into the game, and throwing it up in the air. Is that showmanship? Or do they get focused as they watch the fluttering white particles fall over the time keepers head? The only sports motivational technique that is worse than that is watching a bunch of white cougar football players try to do a Polynesian Haka. It’s like watching a puff of smoke without a disappearing rabbit or a bouquet of flowers from their sleeves. It’s ridiculous and I only have one more thing to say about it: Abracadabra, loose the talcum!

Now, did anyone see Serena Williams at the Australian Open? Was it just a glitch in my television or was she wearing knee length purple spandex and a white tee shirt? The last I checked, women in professional tennis had to wear a tennis skirt to compete. Yea, her shirt was a bit oversized and it had two little slits up the side, but I don’t think that counts as a skirt. Normally, I wouldn’t even notice, but when I flipped the channel and saw her match, I could have sworn that it was Ray Lewis out running around the hard court. I thought that it might have been a celebrity match or something. She may be bigger than a linebacker, but if she is going to compete on the “women’s” tour, I think she should have to obey the dress code. It’s like in the workplace where the guys have to wear ties, pressed shirts, slacks, and polished shoes, and then there’s that one lady that gets away with wearing sweat pants and sandals. Besides, I don’t want to get all excited thinking that I’m going to see Ray Lewis pelt Monica Seles with an overhead if it isn’t really going to happen. I would imagine that would stifle her little screeching awe-HEH!

At the Orphanage

Mason and Bryn at Drakensburg

A Hippo Video

Africa Pictures

Let's see if I can get this link to work . . . .

Dean's Africa Album

. . . . . Hmm, I think that worked! Yay for me!

Future Beauty Queens

Look how beatiful my nieces are!