Amy's Thoughts on Life

Seriously MI-5?!?!

2011-09-06T21:56:00.000-07:00

Good ol' Netflix suggested MI-5 to me, and since I'm going to London soon (have I really not posted about that?) I decided to give the BBC show a go.

I don't have the most discerning taste in entertainment- as in I don't usually care about the plot holes or blatantly repeated themes in shows. I mean, the more I watch a show the more I pick up on them but they don't usually bother me and/or make me stop watching the show-which is still half true in this case.

Basically it's your run-of-the-mill spy show- a five-ish person team made up of the boss, a couple of actual field operatives, a tech guy or two and a person who does the behind-the-scenes deep research are all working together to keep Britain safe.

Spoiler Alert
So, if you ever plan to watch the show or just don't want to know a huge plot point for it, don't continue reading.

They kill everyone off- seriously. No, seriously; and not just the red shirts (which is kinda what we've all come to expect). I'm in Volume (Season) 8, episode 4 (thank goodness there are only 12 episodes left) and they have killed off in one way or another at least 15 main characters. Some of these have actually died-been shot and whatnot-but a few of them have retired, burned out, gone rogue, or have been outed by a conspiracy and basically burned by their own government. The only original person from the first episode is the main boss guy- who is okay, I guess, but not really who I would've chosen as the sole survivor for eight seasons.

I mean, I get that spying is hard- people die and get burned out every day and there's high turnover. But how in the heck are you supposed to connect with a show if they keep changing the dad-gum characters seriously every episode? Especially when you just get used to the new main character and then he gets killed off and you're left with a chick you hate who the writers suddenly try to make likable.

I feel bad for the guys who have to make the title sequence- although it's more revealing for who's dead and who's alive than any other show I've ever watched. Just a side note about that- they tried to change the name of the show about Volume 4 to Spooks before they thankfully realized that that at least was just too far.

It does change things as far as suspense goes-truly wondering if the heroes really are going to live or die. However, it brings things to the other end of the scale to where, instead of saying: "They can't die. They're a main character" to "They'll probably die. They're a main character". It's an odd paradox- one I'm glad I'm almost done with in another 12 episodes.

Why am I finishing it? Because I've come this far and although I'm not really invested in the people per say- because they've pretty much all left- I have this strange compulsion to finish the show.

So maybe they know what they're doing after all?

Seriously.

I need a vacation...companion?

2011-03-23T22:50:00.000-07:00

Even though my 5th grade teacher told me at my brother's wedding reception in December that I need to do more writing it took until today to actually write another post. This is probably mostly because I just got a subscription to Netflix...like two months ago. And I haven't written a blog post in like 8 months...I'll possibly do the calculations to what stopped me 8 months ago and let you all know what I discover. Or probably not, honestly. Thanks for reading this post anyway.

So I've been at my job a year now and lately I've been thinking about going on a hardcore vacation- I mean like a week or two to Florida or a cruise or to Europe or SOMEthing.

Can I just say that it's really hard to do when you're single and don't have a go-to person for vacations? I mean, there are people who you would love to go on vacation with, but they're too poor or don't have any time or have children or school. And you can't really pull them into it with the "You're married to me and we're going" phrase.

Especially when the person who would most likely go with you started doing pre-reqs for her master's program in January just as you started considering taking a vacation, meaning you can't go if it's during the days she has classes. And now she's poorer than she was before because she has to pay tuition and such. Sigh.

And then, of course, there has to be crazy staff changes at work, leaving you the only veteran to take the front lines for getting everything done and your boss gets crazy eyes when you ask her if you can take a week off. Or any time right now, for that matter.

Now, I know some of you independent types are saying, "Well, why don't you just go by yourself? You can do it!" To that I say: I definitely could but that's not a vacation for me. I don't want to go somewhere just to go somewhere-to explore something by myself. I want to be able to share it with someone- to talk about it- to experience it with another person.

Bottom line is I'm going to have to push my burned-out mind a little further- until we can get new people sufficiently trained and I can either find someone to go with me or just brave it and go by myself.

Or maybe become a traveling companion like Jo is in Little Women to her aunt. And then when she dies she'll leave me her giant house and I can turn it into a school with my German professor husband.

I need a vacation.

Hercules and middle school

2010-07-13T20:26:00.000-07:00

It's kinda hard to blog when you work somewhere that you don't feel right divulging stuff that happens at work to the whole wide internets. Especially with HIPAA moles everywhere...probably reading this blog post right now, wondering how I'm violating patient health information...Well I'm not! Back off Big Health Brother!

Anyway, without work that leaves...about sixish hours of the rest of my day to make things happen that are blog-worthy. And then I just give up. It's at that point ideas come to me. Mostly ridiculous ideas- the way I like 'em.

I walk about 15 minutes from the Trax station to my actual work- mostly that time consists of me and my thoughts-and reminding myself to not say these thoughts out loud and look like more of a crazy person than I am.

Hercules was on the brain this morning, and I was thinking of that song at the almost beginning of the movie- Go the Distance. Let's sing it together- either in our heads or out loud for people around us to enjoy...and a one, and a two...

"I have often dreamed
Of a far off place
Where a hero's welcome
Would be waiting for me
Where the crowds will cheer
When they see my face
And a voice keeps saying
This is where I'm meant to be"

This is the theme song of every middle schooler in the entire world.

And it only gets better as we move on to subsequent verses if you think of it that way.

"I'll be there someday
I can go the distance
I will find my way
If I can be strong
I know ev'ry mile
Will be worth my while
I would go most anywhere(insert here "do most anything")
To feel like I belong"

"Down an unknown road
To embrace my fate
Though the road may wander
It will lead me to you
And a thousand years
Would be worth the wait
It may take a lifetime
But somehow I'll see it through"

Sometimes middle school feels like wandering down an unknown road for 1,000 years.

"And I won't look back(to elementary school)
I can go the distance
And I'll stay on track(to actually get out of middle school and graduate high school)
No I won't accept defeat
It's an uphill slope
But I won't lose hope
Till I go the distance
And my journey is complete"

Yeah- you'll never think of it in the same way again either. Also, I was wondering if we as people get into this mode- the grass-is-greener mode. Think about that. And maybe laugh a little as you reminisce about middle school- I know I did.

10 Things I've Learned About Public Transportation

2010-06-30T21:15:00.001-07:00

10. Settle in. Even if everything is on time, you're still going to be 3X longer than it would take, even in rush hour traffic in a car.

9. Bring a book. If you don't have a book, or forgot yours, it's sometimes necessary to buy/play mindless phone games. I recommend Bejeweled.

8. I would highly recommend bringing snacks- when you're pretty much traveling for 3 hours of your day, you get hungry. Also, it's entertaining to watch other people try to watch you unobtrusively as you eat cottage cheese and pineapple- from a cottage cheese container.

7. There are weirdos everywhere, but they seem to congregate in public transportation. Some of my favorites were the guy who said he didn't believe in owning a car because he was sticking it to the man, and the guy who said everyone who is thinking about getting married should get divorced first. What he actually meant is they should look at what goes into the divorce process before getting married, but it was still funny to me.

6. The train will always win. It's terrifying, really, what people will do, even when a four-car light-rail is involved. Especially one that can't stop, even with slamming on the brakes and throwing down sand to stop as fast as possible. Takes at least a good 100 yards or so, depending on what speed it's up to.

5. Every day is a gamble time-wise. I mean, it's always a gamble with any transportation, really, but when you have so many more factors than just your car that you're actually traveling in, it gets interesting. Is the bus driver going to wait for me? Will the train be early or late?

4. Along with that last one, I depend on myself as a part of my transportation a lot more than I do some forms. I walk to and from the station, for instance, because the shuttles are the craziest gamble of all. I'd rather take 5 more minutes and know when I'll be there than possibly be 5 minutes earlier, but probably not.

3. It's okay to say no- especially when a person is creeping you out. I felt bad when a guy hit on me and so I didn't tell him to buzz off. But I was uncomfortable, and he doesn't have that right to do that to me.

2. Making friends is the best way to stay sane and not get hit on by creepy strangers. Or, when you do, you have an easier out. My ride friend is named Summer and I like her a lot. :)

1. It's nice to not have to pay for transportation. Or drive myself an hour every day. :)

Amy Gets a CPAP Machine

2010-02-02T21:26:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been a good two months since I've blogged yet again - I think it's time to rename it "Once a Month Blog" or "Just When Amy Feels Like Writing So Don't Get Your Hopes Up For Frequent Updates".

So, I promised to write about the results of my sleep study - the CPAP-ness and such. It was kind of sad what ended up happening; I got my results and talked to my doctor and I woke up 34 times during the sleep test. 34. And I never even GOT below stage 3 sleep. Ridiculous.

As you can guess, that meant it was time to get a CPAP machine. I got mine from Praxair - a home medical supply place. It's a rent to own type deal with our insurance, so I pretty much got my own unit right off. I met my Praxair representative, who explained how to use my CPAP machine and such, and then proceeded to do a mask fitting to see which one would work best. I ended up going home with this new gel-type one and was pretty happy with it, from what I could tell.

Man was it a whole different world when I tried to use it.

I'm going to ask you to imagine with me again - are you with me yet? Okay, so imagine you're putting on a snorkel mask, but just the nose part. It is literally eating your face and feels HUGE. It presses against your upper lip area because you're wearing a mouth guard because you not only have a blocked airway in your sleep, you grind your teeth. As if one sleep problem wasn't enough.

A snorkel mask is a pretty good comparison not only because of where it sits, but if you have a humidifier attached to your CPAP machine and have it set too high, it feels like you're drowning. If you have it set too low, though, it congests you like crazy.

Also, getting situated is a bit ridiculous - mostly because the hose pushes into the edge of your pillow, pushing the mask into your face. They actually have CPAP pillows that have a hole cut out of the side right where the hose sits, so you don't have that problem. I'm thinking I'm just going to cut a hole out of my pillow. I'll let you know how that one goes.

The best part about a CPAP mask is that you have to get it at just the right pressure - if it's too loose, it leaks and you don't have the right pressure for it to work. If it's too tight, it feels like you're losing all circulation to your face. Yes, that's totally sarcasm.

Okay, so after a week or so of using the new gel mask it was driving me crazy, so I went in and got it switched out for a smaller, older model. The problem with the fitting concept is that the situation of sitting in a chair, testing out masks is not true to how you're actually going to use it; unless people sleep sitting completely upright, which I guess my friend's mom does sometimes (with her CPAP- and now I understand why).

I want to try the nose and mouth covering masks, but the 30-day trial period is up and the insurance won't let me get a new mask for 2 more months. In the meantime, I'm trying to get comfortable in my bed and after an hour I pretty much end up tearing it off in frustration and getting the sleep I can with it off. Why did it work just fine for a month or so and now I can't sleep with it on? I have no idea.

Picture with me wearing the CPAP to come...if I don't destroy it first.

Amy Does a Sleep Study

2009-12-06T22:13:00.000-08:00

I was thinking about all the books we read to kids to introduce them to things like Kindergarten and the doctor's office and the dentist. Mostly I remember Mercer Mayer's Little Critter books that told me about his adventures getting a new sibling or being babysat.

Before I went to a sleep clinic to get a sleep study, I thought, "This would be a perfect kids' book. Except that kids don't do sleep studies, really. (Although I learned later, looking up pictures for this post that kids DO do sleep studies. This would be an awesome children's book!) But I'm kind of anxious to see what's going to happen and wish this was a topic covered in those Little Critter books."

So I'm now going to share with you my experience, because I've always wondered what it would be like.

I came through the door about 8:45 p.m. or so, showed them my copious amounts of paperwork (that's covered in Amy Prepares for a Sleep Study. It's five volumes.), my insurance card and my driver's license. I paid my copay, which was ridiculously low compared to some people's - yes, I peeked at the check-in list - and then the tech walked me back to my room.

It was kind of like a hotel room, except there weren't any windows, and the bathroom was a lot bigger than any I'd ever seen at a hotel/motel. Oh, and there was a camera and microphone. I sat down on the bed, took the pre-study questionnaire (Have you had any caffeine today? Was your day especially stressful? Did you take any naps?) filled out the waiver form (saying things like "You can't sue us for the water-soluble glue we're going to be putting in your hair") and got ready for bed.

I left my door open, as instructed, and was greeted by the tech a few minutes later. In between this I read my scriptures, some of my book and watched a little Castle. She came in to put all the sensors and wires on me that would monitor my sleep.

I want you to imagine a robot.

Now, I want you to imagine opening up that robot. Just slitting him open like a tin can - see all those wires?

Now pull them out of the robot and attach them to various parts of a human.

I seriously had at LEAST 50 wires, coming out of places like my shins to monitor leg movement; my head to monitor brain waves, eye movement and jaw clenching; and my chest to monitor my heart rate. Now, add two straps (like belts, only made of nylon with those snaps you have on a fanny pack) to my chest and stomach to monitor breathing. A pulse monitor went on my finger, as well.

Also, there was this oxygen-tube-like thing that went into my nose to let them know if my breath was coming from my nose or mouth. Except it was pointy. And in my nose all night long. Along with having that, one of the best parts was having my head marked on with pen to see where the head sensors were going to go - she was not all that gentle with her marking and I think I still have the grooves embedded in my skull.

Then it was time for the mask fitting, in case they decided my oxygen levels were too low and I needed to use a CPAP machine to get into deeper sleep. That wasn't too bad, actually. Except for the fact that I had to put it on over all my other crap.

After this arduous task of 45 minutes, she asked if I was ready for bed. I was getting sleepy, and although it usually took me a good hour or two to get to sleep (even with working out and not taking any naps and such) and I hadn't been that early to bed in a long while (it was 10), I decided that that's what I was there for and said sure.

Before we could say goodnight, my tech had to make sure all of the monitors were working, so she had me lie on my back, then had me look to the right and left with my eyes, sit up, stick my tongue out, make three loud snoring noises, and various other exercises I don't remember. Then she told me I could get into any position I wanted and go to sleep.

Oh, yeah. Like that was going to happen.

You know how dogs look on a leash, tied up in the front yard? That's how I felt. I felt compassion for those dogs. And leash kids.

I'm a tosser at night, so every time I would turn over in bed the straps would get stuck on my pajamas and I'd have to figure out how to pull my pajamas straight without moving the straps. The pulse sensor finger thingie was also a problem. It seemed the wire was just barely too short to reach positions I wanted to be in. Oh the cruelty.

Also, it was a balmy 65 degrees in the room - freezing, even in my nice thick jammies. My tech gave me one tiny blanket and told me if I needed more to knock on the headboard. Odd instructions, but I guess they could hear me and help me that way. By the end of the first hour or so (although I had no concept of time because they didn't have kind of night-vision clock in the room) I was turning into an icicle and after hemming and hawing a bit in my mind, I knocked on my headboard. My new tech opened the door and asked what I needed. I said a blanket, and I was going to ask for my socks in my backpack at the foot of the bed, but figured the extra blanket would help.

Not so- my feet were still freezing a good 20 minutes later.

Not wanting to bother my tech again, I thought that even with all my wires, I could probably reach my backpack and get my socks without bothering him. I guess I forgot he was watching my every move - he came in about 30 seconds after I got out of bed, asking if I needed any help, since he'd seen me sit up. I was stretched out like a dog at the end of his rope, performing a probably humorous ballet, straining to reach my backpack and the coveted socks. He chuckled a little, put the bag on my bed, and left again, saying that he was just outside if I needed anything else.

I was glad I didn't have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I feel bad for people with bladder problems who have sleep studies.

About 30 minutes after I fell asleep, to my reckoning (my results said later I woke up 34 times), my tech was there, waking me up with all the cheeriness of a morning person. I groggily said good morning, happily was liberated from my wires (that dang nose sensor went first!) and was instructed to get ready for my day - the glue they used on my sensors was water soluble, after all, so I could take a shower to get rid of it - fill out a morning questionnaire, and have a complimentary breakfast at Kneader's.

It took a good 20 minutes to get all of the glue out of my hair alone, all the while trying to stay in the warm spray of the shower, considering the room and bathroom were still FREEZING. Even so, I was falling asleep.

I braided my hair, packed up my belongings, finished the questionnaire and was out of there. Although I rather horribilize it here, it wasn't so bad.

Especially since I got to go home and sleep a good eight hours.

Coming up next time: Amy Gets Her Sleep Study Results and Amy Gets a New CPAP Machine.

My hat's off to you, William Goldman

2009-10-06T20:26:00.000-07:00

So, I just finished reading The Princess Bride by William Goldman. It's been one of my goals to read some of the classics that I've somehow missed over my past 23 years.

Might I just say - hilarious and fantastic. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I LOVED the pretending to skip over satirical, long, dull parts about the royalty picking their clothes and packing them and such, which was supposed to signify how ridiculous the upper classes are, but really would just be boring. Also, those chapters never actually existed, since the "original" book was by William Goldman. The whole facade was genius - I don't know if I could cut my writing enough to do that. Also, it's a story within a story - with enough detail to make your head spin.

However, even though it was fake, it made me think of some other books that would be thoroughly awesome if the boring parts were chopped out of them. Here is my list of ones that come to mind:

Crime and Punishment - really? It took her 10 pages to walk down the stairs?

Grapes of Wrath - I don't care if those intercaloric chapters had a deeper meaning, and the tortoise trying to get across the road signified the people struggling in his story - they were boring and unnecessary, in my opinion. I also don't believe that is a correct interpretation. Steinbeck was padding his novel for all he was worth, making the masses think his third-grade story about his pet was really deeply significant. Yeah, yeah, I might still be bitter for having to read it in 11th grade - if you have read it, you understand. Also, if you cut out those chapters, you lose nothing of the story. Maybe you lose the artistic depth, but that's it. Maybe.

Persuasion - now, I'm not dissing Jane Austen at all. All I'm saying is that there were some parts in this book that were snooze-fests. Cut out all the family tree stuff, please! We don't really need to know the history of the family to understand the idea that the father stunk and pedigree mattered to him. Besides that, I heart this book.

Now that I've thoroughly alienated the entire English academic community, I'll move on.

Actually, I lied. I want to talk about the movie The Princess Bride first.

I love when writers take actual dialogue from the book to use in the movie. If the author has a great line in there, why not use it? Thank you, William Goldman, for doing just that. Bless you. It was so fun to hear lines from the movie that I'd read in the book. The casting was also fabulous. Lots of no-name actors, except Mandy Patinkin - Becca has informed me, but marvelous acting nonetheless. Might I say near-perfect matching of the characters in the book to the movie? I just did.

Other random thoughts I'd like to share:

I made a thumb cake for Becca's birthday, like the one in an episode of the TV show Glee. It was mostly thought up by my mom, but mostly executed by me. I'll post a pic of it on here when I find the camera.

Micah is still hilarious. Lately, he's had a sarcastic laugh that I blame Calvin and Hobbes for: the classic "Har har". I can't help but laugh when he whips that one out. Also, he's let us know that the first commandment is not actually love God like you all thought, but, and I quote, "Have babies." Wow. Thanks Micah, for that information.

I'm actually kind of getting into a video game. I know! Hang me now. But I started playing around with Boom Blox, and although I've mostly given up on some parts, there are levels I've tried a good 20 times to do well in. I can't believe it, but it's true.

I still love Harry Potter. I used to read them all in order right before J.K. would put out another one, and now that I've missed a few summers, I've found they're still just as enjoyable.

A tribute to Brooklynn, Eck and Jack-Jack

2009-09-02T21:03:00.000-07:00

It's time for a tribute to my sister Brooke, her husband Eric and their son Jack.

No - it's not their birthdays.

No - they didn't buy me a house or a Jaguar (mmm...Jaguars...).

No - they haven't died - but they might as well have - they're moving back East. Just joking! No, really - Steph! Keep reading this post! I promise my cheap shots on the East Coast are done.

It's just that they'll be so far away from me - and Brooke's having my first niece in December, too. I was going to dress her up in hats and bows and purses and bracelets...etc, etc. I know I totally still can spoil her(and believe me, I'm going to visit as often as I can and send packages and such) but it would be more convenient if they were still 30 minutes away. And I could do it more often. And I could be more sure that Brooke and Eric weren't unspoiling her - ruining all my marvelous Aunt Work.

I was helping them clean and pack a little Monday night, and when they left to say goodbye to a friend I sat in their living room, thinking about the good times we'd had there. Sleepovers, talks, movies, dinners, visiting Eric after he had knee surgery and was on pain meds, visiting Brooke after Jack was born, "Rosalinda" - Brooke's Spanish alter ego - coming out after she stayed up late, and sharing many many jokes.

We took a few road trips all together - one to Denver to see Wicked and one to California to play, play and play some more.

This post is gradually declining into a eulogy of sorts, which is creeping me out. Let me just say - yes, I'm sad they're going, but I hope they have so much fun and lots of cool experiences, and I'll keep on keepin' on for the next two years. It'll be over before I know it, probably.

I hope Jack remembers me - except there's that baby amnesia thing. Hmmm...maybe a package will have to include an Amy-mobile or something...

P.S. - I was thinking the other day about how the president of the US is really just like an student body officer at any school - they can promise all they want to put pop in the drinking fountains and have chiminichangas every day for lunch, but when they get into the position, they realize how little power they have and how things really work in their establishment. Without them.

And, yea, verily I thought about writing about my job...

2009-08-12T22:46:00.000-07:00

...but when you work for the government, kind of - I'm a contractor, and get security clearance and have to go to a totally secured building with a siren flashing when you're in a room because you don't have top level security clearance, and take a quiz on what you can and cannot use and do when on an Air Force computer, even when it's unclassified, you get a bit paranoid.

I've probably said too much already.

Actually, all I do is lay out and do some editing for CrossTalk, a Department of Defense software engineering magazine, and we really don't even have to be on base, except for the fact that it helps us to be closer to our editorial board.

But I shouldn't complain - it's just a different world there and I guess I'll get used to it. I hope I will. I might not have time because my job is temporary, which might possibly translate to full time. Guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

For deciding to not write about my job, I sure am saying a lot about it. Ah, well, life goes on.

In other news, it's time for me to get my life all balanced out again because I'll be working 9-hour days with every other Friday off - something that should be interesting.

What else is interesting is sociology in real life - work dynamics with all new coworkers, journalists versus engineers, new jokes about jump drives, and a tenuous relationship with people I might not be working with six weeks from now.

Life is fascinating, no?

Very Merry Unbirthday

2009-07-22T21:56:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I think Brandon wants to get back at me for being his editor on Scroll for a good two years - which is fine by me. It was so worth it.

He's been getting on me to blog, like I haven't blogged in the last couple of months...oh, wait. I haven't. I'm done with the guilt associated with that - I'm just going to blog now.

I've been gone on vacation to California and Seattle, so when I got back, I thought it was time to have a summer par-te.

I had a couple of ideas for a theme, but ended up deciding on an Unbirthday theme - although I didn't realize I was planning it on a day that four of my friends had their actual birthdays. Caryn wondered if she could come, since it was actually her birthday...I said no, of course. ;)

I also decided that since it was everyone's unbirthday, except for those four, I'd invite everyone, whether I thought they were in the area or could come or not. It led to quite the interesting mix of my friends: family, high school, college, roommates, roommates' family - I had it all. I was surprised how many were able to come - both those who reserved on Facebook and those who didn't.

For some reason I didn't think it would be that big of an occasion, and so when I started to realize how many were coming, I started to panic and went into overkill mode - I made 62 cupcakes for this thing, blew up a good 18ish balloons with puzzle pieces inside and about 20 balloons beside that. I visited my family's house, the dollar store and Big Lots to get some supplies.

And then it was time - and I wasn't ready. Thank the heavens everyone else was almost as late as I was - although I did blow dry my hair and do my makeup while a couple of guests were decorating the house and some cupcakes.

I made some introductions and then we started playing - it was time for the card game spoons.

And then there were 5.

Whittled down to 4 - who will survive?

Elliot, Lisa and Tiffany battle for the number 1 and 2 spots.

Epic Battle Over the Spoons - Family Style

Lisa uses her age advantage over Tiffany to snag the title of Spoons Champion - and the spoon.

I called the next game we played "Because I Could" - I put puzzle pieces in balloons (which I wasn't sure I could) and had two different teams of boys and girls pop them and then put the puzzles together. It was great fun and fascinating to see how the teams worked together. Oh, and the puzzles were Care Bears and Power Rangers.

But, alas, someone cheated on the girl's team side and kept some of the boy's pieces, and the girl's team lost some of their pieces in a popped balloon, so we switched puzzles and did it again. The boys won and got to choose a prize from my crappy dollar store prizes - yes, that's what I called them.

It was time for white elephant gifts. There were some high high quality gifts in that circle - almost as high quality as my dollar store prizes. I personally won a Cindy Crawford exercise tape - I believe it's important to have at least one video in your collection that makes people do a double take. There were also some rock-awesome guitar glasses and a Cat in the Hat hat that switched hands a few times.

Here's what everyone ended up with.

The Grand Finale was decorating cupcakes, putting candles in them, lighting them up and singing happy unbirthday to ourselves.

Yes - we are just that amazing.

In other news, I've finally finished most of my Pay it Forward stuff and proceeded to give Deb her painted pistols with her name written on them, and a video entitled Cowboys.

She looks crazy awesome in this pic I took of her with her loot.

More Pay it Forward to come - someday soon...

Question about "He's Just Not That Into You"

2009-06-26T00:17:00.000-07:00

So - I watched He's Just Not That Into You a few weeks ago and I was wondering about something.

You know how they talk about how girls tell each other stories - basically rumors - that help each other get along with their specific situation? And the main guy character says, "They are the exception, not the rule." For instance, one of the girls is having an affair (dumb dumb dumb) and her friend tells her she knows a man who left his wife to marry the girl he was having an affair with and they've been married for 30 years.

An old roommate told me a story once about her friend who chased a guy, rather than the other way around, and he married her. Is this one of those stories that's an exception? Because it's feeling like it is - unless it's one of those things some girls can get away with because they're gorgeous, which makes for maybe a few more exceptions than normal. Or is our society truly changing and women have more power in dating relationships than they used to and are breaking social norms left and right?

For most relationships I've seen, most of the chasing has to be mutual - although I have seen some relationships where it seems that one person gives up and allows themselves to be caught. But is this just a perception on my part or a reality? I really wonder how some relationships work.

These are the things I think about sometimes - weird.

A flying conspiracy

2009-06-11T00:17:00.000-07:00

Yes - it's been over a month since I've written on here. Again. Good thing y'all have Google readers and such, so you don't have to check it every day, wondering if I've posted something new - so, you're fine. :)

As I was packing for my trip to Houston to see my adopted sister's wedding, I realized to my annoyance that there is a conspiracy going on in the flying business.

The first component was not being able to take over 3 ounces of fluid on a plane. (Thanks a lot, liquid explosives bomber man.)

The second component is the oh-so-nice addition that has been more recent - having to pay for all luggage that's checked.
(Thank you airlines and gas companies.)

I didn't think it would be that much of a problem, until I looked at all the things I had normally checked and forgotten long before boarding.

Perfume - I do not have less than 3 ounces...I ended up spraying about 100 times and getting some into a random bottle I bought from the Dollar Store because I couldn't figure out how to open it and pour some out from one container to another.

Hair product - I'm not talking shampoo or conditioner - those were fine to find in less than 3 ounces. I'm talking serum and pomade and frizz-be-gone. But it ended up that I didn't have enough room in my quart(!) bag anyway, so these weren't even considerations in the end.

Deodorant - I have recently fallen in love with the new Secret gel deodorant. Crap - GEL. So I settled for some solid Secret - in a tiny container, thank goodness.

Face wash - this is the story about my exploded bottle of facewash. It got a tear in the plastic about...a year or so ago, and ever since then it's been slowly disintegrating. So I keep it in a plastic bag. I was pretty much so angry at this point that I *gasp* just chucked it in my bag and hoped security didn't find it. They didn't. All they cared about was my roll of pennies - they left my bag in the x-ray machine FORever, with me sweating that they'd find my secret stash of liquid.

And yet, as I was griping and complaining about everything, I remembered a clip from YouTube - and I felt contrite. Instead of taking three hours for the flight, it could have taken me a good 24 - and that's in a car, not by horseback or wagon or walking.

But I could have at least taken more than a 3 ounce canteen.

Man, I love these kids

2009-05-05T18:57:00.001-07:00

As per a request from a few people, here are pictures of my team. Not in action, which hopefully I'll get in a few weeks when I have more time, but they're still pretty awesome.

Since I was the only coach to be at picture day (I'm not even sure the kids remember my dad now) I was in the team picture and picture with my "child". A bit awkward, but I guess I have been to the most games so far, so it's all good.

From back left to right: Kaleb, Ashley, Jordan and Micah.
From front left to right: Sierra, Elaina, James, Kyson and Kanyon.

They are hilarious. Kaleb, James and Micah all know each other from the neighborhood, and so it's hard to tear them apart and keep them from ripping each others' hats off. Or uprooting the field, one blade of grass at a time. In fact, I have a hard time keeping any of my kids from doing that. Ashley's my little shadow - she's adorable. Jordan is one of my star players who pays attention the entire time and blasts it off of the tee. Micah is also this way, but he tends to get distracted by his friends.

Sierra is the youngest player on the team and had a hard time understanding what to do first off, but now gets what to do and smacks the ball and runs the bases with the best of them. Elaina is one of my other stars - who knows what's going on at all times and seems to enjoy playing. James is like Micah - a great player when he's not being distracting/distracted. Kyson is adorable and has the funniest laugh - he also pays attention and is usually one of the first ones in line when I start one. Kanyon understands and plays hard, but has allergies, so she's itching her eyes a lot. I feel bad for her, but she seems to have a pretty good time.

All for now from the little old lady who lives in a shoe. Er, mitt?

Tiny Tikes Teeball

2009-04-29T18:54:00.000-07:00

I feel like I'm in that Strongbad email where he dusts off his computer screen and shoos the cockroach away. I'd like to give a shout out to Deb for encouraging me to get back on the proverbial blog horse - considering I am now assistant coaching teeball and it's hilarious.

My dad asked me to assistant coach my little brother's team - not telling me that he'd be gone most Thursdays at institute. But I was still down, even after I realized I'd be alone half the games.

The first practice pretty much rocked - not only did it seem we had a really young team, it started hailing about an hour into it. Micah looked up and said, "Ow!" So smart in so many ways, yet looks up in the stinging hailstorm. I will never understand the way that mind works under that red hair.

This is only the beginning of many, many good times I've had on those fields.

Let me tell you the number one thing you need when you're coaching teeball - energy, energy and more energy. If we're batting it's, "Does everyone have a helmet who's batting?" "Is everyone in a safe place so they won't be hit by the bat and/or the ball?" "Who's up to bat now?" "Good job! You almost hit the ball!" "Good job! You hit the ball! Drop the bat and run to first! Run to first! Run to first!" This is especially important for one of my players, who understands how to get the ball, but doesn't understand that this doesn't pertain to right after she bats.

Then, after batting it's fielding, which means I have to get them all out of helmets and into mitts and out on the field. Ah, repetition. "Green! Time to go out on the field! Out on the field! Out on the field!" I feel like a broken Speak 'N Spell. Then, it's keeping everyone in their places and getting them to look for where the ball is going. Some kids just get it, some kids don't, and some kids just don't care. It's fascinating trying to figure out which it is for each child. "Pay attention green!"

I've found a good way to keep the kids from piling on each other when they're all trying to get the ball is to say the name of the first person to get to the ball and say, "Ashley has the ball" over and over, until they let them alone.

One of the hard parts about teeball is that nothing really matters - there aren't any points, outs or real innings, so nothing that any of the kids do really matters. This means it's hard to keep them focused and teach them the basics of baseball when there aren't immediately obvious consequences to their actions. No one wants to be on any other base or area but first because nothing happens beyond that point. We really emphasize throwing it to first, rather than the lead runner. I remember learning to throw it to the base with the lead runner my first year of softball and thinking, "Really?"

Another great time was during pictures - it was a Thursday, which meant I was flying solo. Oy - I was really grateful for the parents to help me keep them in order from shortest to tallest while I tried to figure out just exactly where we were supposed to be going. Plus, I totally didn't think about it and had treats handed out after the game, which was consequently before pictures. Crackles.

Getting the kids to understand what the photographer wanted was...okay. Again, some got it, some didn't. But they were all adorable in their pics. I was in the group pic and complimentary pic with my "child," since my dad wasn't there to take it.

Weird. Did I really just do a whole post about teeball? Welcome back.

Virtual Tour Part 2

2009-03-18T14:29:00.000-07:00

After an incredibly, ridiculously long wait it's time for part two of my virtual tour! It started here, if you missed part one.

Here's my bedroom. I bought those good-looking boxes for my scrapbook I might make one day.

Oh! And then a feint to the upstairs bathroom.

Jetted tub - makes me happy.

Semi-artsy shot of the counter.

$100 waterbed - yes, I am from the 80s. I heart my hodgepodge of blankets - one of which was made by Caryn, with a matching pillowcase. She's amazing.

Nightstand I made in high school, my IKEA lamp, CD alarm clock, cute vase from my cousin Clarisa's wedding with dollar store flowers, humidifier and various other books and stuff.

Closet #1 - shoes, games, bags, random stuff...Man! I love having two closets.

And yet, Closet #2 is bulging full.

I love this sign above my door.

What bedroom is complete without a Homestarrunner poster? Complements of Brandon.

Wall-o-photos and dresser - what's taken me the longest to finish.

I made this bookshelf. From a box. I'm still ridiculously proud.

Hot rack my friend Steph made for me- it's now a hat rack. :)

Shelves o' friends - one of my fav parts of my room.

For a limited mortal time only - personalized trials fit to your very special life

2009-03-04T14:43:00.000-08:00

I had an epiphany about trials the other day because of a couple of things in my life, enumerated below:

1. I'm listening to a book on CD called The Boleyn Inheritance which talks about the period just after Queen Anne Boleyn is sent to the block. It talks of Anne of Cleaves becoming queen and Katherine Howard then catching the eye of the king and eventually marrying him, after Anne of Cleaves is pretty much divorced from the king. Katherine Howard is a ridiculous flirt and part of the book is her narration, which makes me laugh. She is the most vain person I've ever read of or even heard of - she's forever saying, "I'm the prettiest girl at court," even when she's just a maid-in-waiting. She even moans a bit about how it's hard to be the prettiest girl in court - and how she wants to be good, but it's hard when she attracts so much male attention.

Eventually, she gets sent to the chopping block for adultery. Whoops. I had a thought while I was listening to her go on and on: "I'm glad I don't have to worry about vanity - I don't have a problem with it, really."

2. I was talking with someone about her friend who has guy troubles. Now, her troubles are different from the normal girl's guy troubles - she has a hard time deciding what she wants because she's always been pretty and popular. When she starts getting serious with a guy, she thinks about how many other guys want to date her, and usually ends up breaking up with the guy she's dating to date someone else. If there's the slightest bump in the relationship, she starts thinking that it can't work out. Now, she's never learned that this is not the way to act in a relationship because there are always plenty of guys to take her ex-boyfriend's place.

I was thinking, "I don't have a problem with sorting out guys and not wanting to make relationships work - when one comes along, I almost have the opposite problem."

3. I was watching a CSI that had show girls on it, and the owner of the establishment was talking about how one of his ladies was getting old - she was 27.

Bottom line: Everyone has their own trials, and some people have the trial of being beautiful and popular. I've never really thought about how it would be hard to be beautiful and popular - but I guess you would have more temptation with the opposite sex, and sometimes you wouldn't know who your real friends were. I'd have a hard time not basing my self esteem on my good looks and people liking me, which could all go away with old age, or even a tragic accident that left me horribly disfigured.

Maybe THAT'S why the Phantom of the Opera turns out like he does! He was a male model, and then...

I guess we all have our own trials. I was reading in 1st Nephi, and I realized that everyone in Nephi's family has their own personal trials, along with generally being in the wilderness and such. Sariah has to deal with her sons not being with her, while they go into Jerusalem to get the plates from a man who's not known as the nicest guy. She's already sacrificed to go to the wilderness, and part of her thoughts were probably that at least she'd be able to be with her family. Lehi has to deal with his son being more humble than him, at a time when hunger had its own voice, and the Lord speaking directly to his son instead of him. Sam and Joseph have to watch their brother Nephi being beaten up by Laman and Lemuel time and again.

I don't think the Lord gives us more than we can handle on this earth, but I do think sometimes He puts us in the situations that are the hardest for us. I can remember thinking a few times, "I'd almost rather have any other trial but this one" and wishing to trade lives with someone - but everyone has their own cross to bear.

This reminds me of one of my fav quotes that I can't find for the life of me. It goes something like this: "If you were to assume everyone was in the middle of a huge trial, and would treat them with kindness as such, 90% of the time you would be right."

Smorgasbord Statements

2009-02-25T10:18:00.000-08:00

Time for random snapshots of Amy's life!

Yes, I know I have yet to post pics of my room. It's slowly coming together. I finally fixed my waterbed - draining and refilling one of the water bladders last night, after adjusting its position so it actually lay flat (thanks to Caryn for her help with that). Also, I put away a box of stuff I had yet to unpack from my parents - and I filed some stuff I had crammed under my bed. What's left: file stuff crammed in my nightstand, put up the rest of my pics, get a family pic to put up, sort my nick-nacks on my dresser and other places. Someday soon I might take pics and post them, whether my room is completely ready or not...

I won a Pay It Forward contest, which I think is a fun thing I'm going to try. I won over at my friend Jess' blog. Who will win? I'm kind of excited to see who it is...below are the rules, in quotes.

"The details + the rules:
1. Be one of the first THREE bloggers to leave a comment on this post, which then entitles you to a handmade item from me - something crafty or yummy, who knows?!
2. Winners must post this challenge on their own blog, meaning that you will Pay It Forward, creating a handmade gift -anything!- for the first THREE bloggers who leave a comment on YOUR post about this giveaway!
3. The gift that you send to your 3 friends can be from any price range and you have 365 days to make/ship your item. This means you should be willing to maintain your blog at least until you receive your gift and have shipped your gifts. And, remember: It’s the spirit and the thought that count!
4. When you receive your gift, please feel free to blog about it! If you are not one of the top three commenters on this post, you can still play along."

I've always assumed that once you get to a certain age, you've got balance all worked out. Now, I realize that you have to adjust when you get married and have children and such, but I thought living on your own was living on your own, regardless of what you were doing. But living on my own without having school is completely different from having school. I now have no time in the day to do things, but several compressed hours from 6-11ish. It's funny - if I cram my night with things to do and accomplish a lot, I feel cheated of my night and exhausted, but if I stay home all night I feel lazy. I guess it's a constant battle no matter your age or marital status. Joy. :)

I'm now a co-author of a blog my brother Brandon started called "Things We Learned From Lost Last Night". It's fun stuff - although, I don't usually think of theories on my own. I talk with Brandon about questions I have and craft them from there, kind of. I've only done one post so far, and it wasn't about a theory, so we'll see how that sorts out.

The Bachelor

2009-02-09T23:12:00.000-08:00

I was watching bits and pieces of The Bachelor with my roomies - mostly watching 5 minutes here and there as I made my way around the house.

And all of a sudden, I was thinking, "Why am I watching something I see every day and saw at BYU-Idaho every day?"

I never really felt the weight of the statistic - that states there are more men than women until everyone turns 18, and then there are more women - until I went to BYU-Idaho. I'm told there are actually more men there than women, but many of those men are married. I never got exact numbers.

I was in a ward (66th!) that was an entire apartment complex put together - 8 guy apartments and 16 or so girl apartments. As you can probably imagine, this led to many-a-contest for male affection, and I'm told this was the way it was for most wards at BYU-I: there was "The Ward Desirable" that pretty much got hit on in every modest, BYU-I way possible. Oh the egos of formerly humble men that got inflated to ridiculous proportions because they made rounds on Sunday nights to every girl apartment and received mounds of baked goods.

Oh, the scene of catty women fawning over a male who takes what he can get because, heck, why not? Granted, the rating is taken down a notch because of the gospel and such, but once I started thinking about it, the comparison was still eerie. Thousands of BYU-I students play out episodes of The Bachelor without even knowing it! It doesn't get much better in the "real world," either, after you graduate. Oh, single's wards.

Is there any other reality show that pretty much shows us what we see every day? Why the heck is The Bachelor still popular? Maybe because women think it's nice to see it happening to someone else. I was thinking that a truly original reality show with things that didn't happen all that often in real life would be The Bachelorette, with lots of men fighting over the same woman, but I guess it ran and bombed a few years back.

Church talkers should go straight to...

2009-02-04T14:45:00.000-08:00

Maybe I'm obsessed with this, or maybe I can't think of anything else to blog about, but I'm going to blog about the church talkers who sat behind me on Sunday. Or did I sit in front of them?

We got there about two minutes early and I randomly picked out a row, about midway between the pulpit and the back. I thought that was pretty safe, and the other time I'd been to the ward it had been pretty silent and pleasant and we had been in about the same place.

I kind of listened to the conversation of the two guys behind me, talking about one guy's date and how it was okay, and they talked 'til like 3 in the morning, but she's too high maintenance. I'm not gonna lie - I eavesdropped like a bandit. Do bandits eavesdrop? Well, I was and now they do.

And then the meeting began.

And they kept talking.

And talking.

And talking.

Now, I can't say I'm not guilty of talking in church - who isn't? - but I NEVER hold an entire whispered conversation. I have held an entire note conversation, however.

So, there they went, going on and on about something (I could no longer hear intelligible words at this point), and I did the whole act of turning my head several times, looking at them surreptitiously every five minutes or so. I then turned around and said, "Shhhh," while I was smiling, trying to not come off as the quiet police but wanting them to be quiet and kind of not caring all the same.

Then, near the end of the meeting, with more and more anger bottling up inside of me, I snapped. Kind of.

I spun around, and, still trying to keep my cool, said, "Could you be quiet? It's kind of rude to talk right now." Then I smiled - but I'm sure it was rather strained and came out rather maniacal. I don't know that I would want to see what that smile looked like.

They gave me that look like, "Stay cool, sister." And resumed their conversation about five minutes later.

Here are the thoughts that went through my head:

"I wish they would be quiet."

"I shouldn't judge them, but they're kind of interrupting the whole meeting. Not the whole meeting - I'm exaggerating. But I'm sure they're bothering more people than just me."

"Maybe if I were more righteous I could ignore them and focus on the meeting."

"I need to have charity."

"I don't want them to think I'm the quiet police, but I'm not supposed to care what people think about me if I'm doing righteous things. But is it righteous to tell someone to be quiet? Is that charitable? Do I have charity for these talkers? No." *say a little prayer to be more charitable and have Heavenly Father forgive me for being so angry in church.

Dah.

Moral of the story? Sit in the front row.

Half of a Virtual Tour of My New House

2009-01-28T15:01:00.000-08:00

Okay, okay, okay - I've procrastinated long enough. It's time for y'all to see photos of my house. But, because it would take lots and lots of pics to show it, and my room's not completely finished yet, I'm only going to give you 3/4s of the tour. Deal with it. ;)

Welcome to my house!

This is my door. If you look to your left, there's the upstairs living room. It's got very comfortable couches and a fireplace, the latter of which isn't working because of a gas problem.

We're moving away from the living room...

To the dining room! This is the smallest room in the house - which I don't mind, considering I don't sit there all that often, contrary to the evidence of my book and food on the table right now...

That door leads to my deck - yes, we have one. It's awesome, but not so much in the winter. I'll try to take a pic of it when it's light and I'm home - if the two happen to coincide someday.

This is my kitchen - well the window seat in my kitchen. My roomies call it the Dorothy Kitchen because it's so bright red and blue. I love it. No more two-butt kitchen - there's actually room!

Here's the actual kitchen part of the kitchen.

These stairs are off the kitchen to the downstairs.

This is the first room you see - which is kind of a hall. It has an electric piano and storage space.

This is the washer and dryer I use in the laundry room. They're pretty amazing - you can set all types of cycles. I'm easily impressed when it comes to appliances.

This is the downstairs living room - it has awesome 70s wood paneling and couches from that same era. I pretty much love it, even though I haven't spent that much time in it so far.

This is the kitchen that's just off the downstairs living room. That fridge isn't actually plugged in yet (it needs to be cleaned out) and I don't think the water works there. Also, there's not so much as a microwave on the counter. Or a stove or anything. Good thing the upstairs one is so big. :)

Downstairs bathroom.

Sink and cupboard and such in the downstairs bathroom.

Thanks for joining me on my virtual tour. Join me soon for the rest of it!

Since I've been gone

2009-01-16T15:30:00.000-08:00

Well, since I've moved I've had a lot on my mind. Here are a few points:

I have no idea how to put things together. I read one list of directions for the rack for my file folder box and my eyes glazed over. Even with the pictures on directions, sometimes I'm still in the dark. This makes me feel incredibly incompetent, yet grateful for people who have the logical sense to put things together. Here's to the engineers of the world - I salute you.

It's weird that my home is now still a house, but contains no family - that I know of, yet. When I head home from places now, I have to remind myself I live in Holladay.

Getting organized/decorating my room - I'm awful about it. I still have empty boxes and my old bed hanging out. I get the urge to organize at the oddest times - like 1 a.m.

Trying to organize five different girls' cars, plus their friends' is hard, especially when you have to line them up in order of departure in the morning. Although, when you know you're pretty much the last one to leave, you just try to park in front.

The end, for now. Pictures of my new place to come...sometime in the future.

An ad I actually like

2009-01-07T15:37:00.000-08:00

Much of my time at the Park Record consists of building and changing ads for the paper, which is not my favorite thing to do design-wise.

But my favorite things might change because of this ad I just made today.

(Except girls in white dresses still ROCK!:)

It's been CRAZY - what with the Film Guide for the Sundance Film Festival going to the printer on Monday and production having one less day to work on it because we thought it wasn't going to actually happen because there weren't any ads sold for it - until Monday. So, two of us are working on the layouts for the actual Guide, and three of us are working on ads for it and for the upcoming Saturday paper. I've built and changed about 100 billion ads today alone and want to change my name to Ad Amy. What do you think? Or AdGirl. Or AdTastic. You get the idea.

Seeing as I built all the ads, it wasn't surprising that I built an ad for [NAME OF ADVERTISER DELETED] It was going to be built in black and white originally, and I still liked it then, but then the guy from the resort emailed me and asked if it was going to be in color, so I switched out everything to color - and fell in love.

[Picture of this ad deleted because owner of said anonymous company was upset that I put it up here - even thought I built it and I have some creative license attached to it, I just decided because he wanted me to take it off I would - because I work for the Park Record and anything I make for them also belongs to them, so it's legally tenuous and I don't want to have to deal with it.]

I especially love the coupon - it just feels more professional than anything I've made in my life. It was kind of a fluky thing, too, putting the logo in the coupon- it was because I couldn't fit it anywhere else. I also just discovered Onyx font and it just works for this ad.

In moving news: I'm finally moving into my little house in Holladay. I've been postponed from Saturday to Monday to Tuesday to tonight - mostly because the van I'm moving in was in the shop. Oh, and my own car. But tonight's the night and I'm stoked! Pics to come.

In Micah news: He told me he had two brains yesterday.

"How did that happen?" I asked

"Well, I have a brain from preschool and one from kindergarten," he replied sensibly.

I thought to myself, "Wow - that kind of makes sense," and actually said out loud, "So, I have 18 brains? I've gone to 18 years of school, counting preschool and kindergarten."

"Yep," he said.

Then he told Becca his theory and she asked how many brains a person could get.

He said something to the effect of "however far they go in school."

That kid...too smart for his own good and not even in first grade yet. Oy.

Cardinal rules

2009-01-05T10:35:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about cardinal rules we all hold near and dear to our hearts - as a family and as an individual.

I should probably back up and explain what I call cardinal rules and at least a partial explanation of why I've been thinking about them.

Example of a cardinal rule: For many people, being on a time is a cardinal rule. You're never late - the end. To be late, especially on a regular basis, is the most rude thing you could ever do to this person; they can't fathom a good enough reason to be chronically tardy and are horrified and profusely apologetic when something happens to make them late.

Other areas for cardinal rules - cleanliness, germs, tact, honesty, church callings and attendance, etc.

I was talking with my mom about someone who bothers her sometimes with her/his seeming lack of consideration, among other things. I brought up the fact that since I'd grown up with her, I knew all of her cardinal rules, and unless I wanted to be in trouble, I avoided breaking them like the plague.

Other people who have not grown up with me, yet are trying to join the family, don't have the luxury of knowing these rules offhand, and must learn them. Sometimes they learn them by breaking them and facing consequences for rules they didn't know existed.

We talked about how cardinal rules are good things to follow - but sometimes aren't the most important things in life. Almost everyone has a different set of them - at least some of them are towards their good.

Maybe we all need to take a look at what are cardinal rules for our lives - what we live and die by - and whether they're really important.

Heck, I know I am.

Moving and a bed question

2008-12-29T10:38:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I've thought about moving out for awhile now, although since my parents have told me it's okay that I live at home, I've honestly thought about it less and less frequently. However, one of my old roomies from BYU-I wanted to move closer to her work and has been looking diligently for the past couple of months for a place for both of us to live, unlike lazy me.

About a week ago she wrote on my Facebook wall that she'd found a house with two openings and asked if I wanted to go see it with her. I said sure, and after wandering around 42nd South and 900 East in Holladay, found this amazingly cute little house. I was already kind of in love with it when I saw the outside, but then I went inside and fell in love with it further.

Jessica met me and Jesika in the foyer and welcomed us in. We walked into the kitchen, which was plenty roomy and decorated in red and black, through the rather small dining and living rooms, out to their deck. Yes, you read it right - a deck! It's not that useful/cool right now, but summer's not THAT far away. Okay, so it is, but I still liked the feature.

When we went into the living room, someone was watching Jon and Kate Plus 8 - yes! Not only do I love that show, but it means they have cable, which I'm going to admit I've missed in the past few months. :)

Then she briefly showed us the upstairs bedrooms and bathroom and led us downstairs to see the open room and bathroom, which both were acceptable. The shared room was a bit small, but honestly, when you've lived in Greenbrier where the beds are about a foot apart, you get hit by the door if you're sitting at your desk and you have a two-butt kitchen, it was plenty of room. :) Ah, the things one does for an awesome ward.

We also saw some random closet areas that are available for storage and such, and the downstairs living room and kitchen. Although the kitchen doesn't have anything to cook with, they want to get a microwave, and they have a second fridge down there - wa-hoo. It was also hard fitting 6 girls' food in one fridge, no matter how big it became when we got a new one.

While we were standing in the room, several of the roommates and one of their boyfriends came in to talk to us - which was a ton of fun. Jessica told us the ward was really good - not students, but not singles a ton older than us. Mostly working singles just starting out their careers. Score! All my roomies are active LDS. Also, at $200 for a shared room, it was a steal. The location was also prime for going to Park City (the joy!) being right by the 700 East entrance to I-80. According to Mapquest, it is 33 minutes away from work - but that's going the speed limit...;)

Jesika and I both almost agreed immediately that it was the perfect place for us to live and we needed to get this before it went to someone else- the horrible possibility we didn't want to think about.

I filled out a lease agreement, and now just need to drop off my deposit and first month's rent sometime soon...oh, and move in. I'm thinking I'll do it Jan. 1st or 3rd.

It's unfurnished, which presents a unique situation - I'm taking a twin bed frame and mattress and a dresser from my parents, along with a few other pieces of furniture, but since I've been sleeping on a water bed the past few months, I'm worried about being able to sleep, so I'm seriously considering getting a memory foam or Intelligel topper for the mattress. Anyone know any good deals? Which is better? Or is it just a preference thing? I've tried just looking it up online and I'm totally lost.

Also, anyone have any bedroom furniture they don't want? :)

Work Story Time

2008-12-17T14:37:00.000-08:00

I was chatting with one of my old Scroll buddies, Kathryn Gaglione, and she was asking if any of my production work was available online. I told her I believed approximately none of it was available in PDF form on the internet.

But I did tell her I'd post a few of my favorites on my blog, so here I am.

Story time!

The coolest part of all the images I had in this layout was the x-ray of a knife not quite hitting anything important in this guy's neck. Apparently, if I got this right, it was the editor (Morgan Schenck) of a movie who got stabbed - he was doing an ongoing documentary project about a former Olympic gold medalist, Rick DeMont, whose medal was wrongfully rebuked because he tested positive for a banned substance in his asthma medication. It was DeMont's story that helped Schenck get past his stabbing experience. Oh, and apparently he was stabbed by a mentally disturbed homeless person without provocation.

I've found that I work really well when I have a bunch of pictures to work with - in this case, a few small ones, too. The Eccles Center (the new performing arts center in Park City) had just released their season and it just screamed spotlight to me - and there were enough vertical and horizontal pictures to keep it balanced.

Apparently Park City did a ghost tour during Halloween - and I couldn't resist going for a creepy, yellow, slightly transparent layout. People in old pictures don't smile much anyway, which helps.

This is another story of having lots of really cool picture - especially the rug pictures. This was a story about the Native American Rug Sale (although at one point it was mistakenly put on the calendar as Drug Sale...oh man. Good times). My boss of the office came and told me personally he liked the layout. Oh - the happiness that filled my soul.

Yay for Halloween! And the photographer, David Ryder, who took pictures of cute kids, up against the same background. It kind of meant I could squish quite a few good pictures altogether and the backgrounds didn't compete. I think this is one of the few times I've played around with these stand-alone picture clusters.

I love when people play with text for visual effect - that's what I tried doing here. Can you read what I'm saying the whole time? I learned some new text speak...

Because the bottom picture's in black and white it makes the dog look like he's floating - which is kind of cool, although they tell you with design to always anchor your pictures.

Yet another instance of fabulous photography by David that I merely placed on page in an appealing way. This story was about an advocate for access for people with disabilities. Apparently Park City stinks in this area.

Ah, the un-hokey family picture- a bunch of them put together, actually. It makes me happy.

As does going home - which is what I'm going to do right now.

Why you should not make a Christmas album

2008-12-09T15:08:00.001-08:00

"Why shouldn't I make a Christmas album?" you might ask yourself.

I will tell you why in this easy-to-remember 5-step list:

1. Just because everyone else has one does NOT mean you should.

2. I believe you shouldn't change classic songs (Christmas or not) - even if they've been around for 100 billion years - UNLESS you change it enough to make it your own, but so it's still distinguishable as the song you're trying to connect it to. I know this is a tall order, but some people have been able to do it - see Kurt Bestor.

3. You probably can't meet the requirements from number 2. Just don't do it if you can't.

4. Getting a Christmas album out just because you can and that it could possibly be a hit is lame - especially with no truly original content. You should rethink your career in the music industry.

5. Because if you make one, BFFs or not, I would be extremely tempted to burn it in a trashcan, as this picture I made illustrates.

But, seriously, I was talking with the editor of the section I work with here at the Park Record newspaper, Greg Marshall, about how I hate that everyone has a Christmas album and almost none of them are any good.

He said it was probably because most of the songs weren't copyrighted, and when radio stations are playing Christmas music from Halloween to New Year's, they're desperate for content and draw from anyone.

Also, he said that most music artists who are successful might do it just because if people see their name attached to it they'll buy it.

To that I say, "Stay away from Christmas! Make a Halloween album then! Or a summer album! Summer lasts longer than Christmas anyway."

Yes - with that many exclamation points.

I feel passionately about this.

Maybe I'll write a song called "Stay Away From Christmas"...

P.S. If you DO decide to make a Christmas album anyway, please have enough creativity to call it something besides "__(Insert your name/group here)__ A Christmas Album". *snore

Stream of consciousness thoughts and epiphanies

2008-12-03T15:02:00.000-08:00

I realized I've had quite a few epiphanies and other random thoughts about myself and life in general in the past few days and want to share some of them in a random, stream-of-consciousness kind of way.

I could live off of pie and biscuits - but would be happier if it were pumpkin pie and Pilsbury biscuits. I have eaten approximately 800 pounds of pie over Thanksgiving and could go on eating it forevermore. I only had one biscuit, but it's flaky goodness would never get old - or at least not for a long time.

Me and my friend Caryn are like a married couple - except we probably see each other more than some married couples. We hang out after work until like 10, or later usually, every day. Or mostly every day. Does that make me pathetic? Probably.

Hot, flirty types marry other hot, flirty types. Extremely nerdy, weird types marry other extremely nerdy, weird types. Since there are so few of each, they find each other. It reminds me of what a police officer in Rexburg told me one time: "Put two pot smokers on BYU-Idaho campus in the Hart auditorium (which seats about 7,000ish) on opposite sides and they'll eventually find each other." If you're even partially normal or just kind of cute, you're stuck in the middle with all the other 400 million people who are that way. Good luck finding a spouse in that mish mash. Plus, the percentage of guys I can tolerate who aren't extremely weird, hot or married is like .0001 of guys I'm around. Whoopee.

I am a newspaper nerd. Who else do you know gets an idea for what to put in their college newspaper? And then contacts the people at said newspaper to spin the idea? Yeah...other newspaper nerds.

Technology is really annoying sometimes. My phone's doing the white screen of death thing and it's starting to get to me. I ordered a phone from T-Mobile and kind of shopped around but ultimately got a free phone for a two year plan extension. It wasn't a flip phone - which is extremely weird. Guess I'll see how I like the whole slide phone thing. Let you know how that goes.

People who want practical gifts at Christmas weird me out. I mean, I guess everything in one sense or another is practical, in that they serve a purpose (whether it be entertainment or not) but some are jut weird practical - socks? Really? A Walmart gift card for buying groceries? Okay, I guess...I don't have the proper financial mindset, I guess.

I'm still weird in that I like buying personal gifts I think of myself for people. I'm almost done with my Christmas shopping. My list I originally wrote with ideas for people is almost all wrong to what I actually got for them. No danger in snooping kids or parents, I guess. :)

I thought Christmas would be more Christmasy now that I was at home with the real Christmas tree (which is actually a fake Christmas tree, but it's the right size and shape and has the lights and ornaments on it and everything) and kids with starry eyes and such...nope. Nothin' so far - not even when I try listening to Christmas music. I think this is because I spent so long fighting it, what with Christmas music and commercials touting Christmas between Halloween and Thanksgiving, when the holiday should NOT be celebrated. Does this make me a Scrooge or just older? Lame either way.

I drink a lot of water out of a plastic water bottle I got when I had my gall bladder surgery - this has elicited two comments at work: 1) I must be a mom 'cause these are the mugs they give mothers when they have their babies and 2) I'm eco-friendly because I refill it instead of using lots of plastic water bottles. Wow. Both were rather off the mark. I guess my water bottle says a lot about me, eh? A lot of false things.

Well, I hope you weren't all bored to death in this little trip into the inner workings of my mind.

Or more like the outer that I think of on the surface.

2 for 1 holiday excitement!

2008-11-24T11:16:00.000-08:00

Now that my family is getting older and starting to have children and such (well actually just two of my siblings but it feels like my whole family) it was decided that we're having Thanksgiving dinner at our house. Let me tell you - it was an idea that took some getting used to, but once I did I enjoyed the thought immensely.

I love having my whole immediate family over for dinner, although we haven't really done it since Jack and Scott were born. It's always hilarious - not only are my younger siblings prone to outbursts like "Can you pay me for being so good?" which was a Micah comment after my mom paid someone back the money she borrowed from them, but my older siblings are pretty funny, too. Mostly when they try to bait my mom and dad into saying something like, "You know what I say: if it feels good, do it!" and then endlessly tormenting them because of it. Ah, the joys of family.

We usually end up bringing the mashed potatoes to extended family Thanksgiving celebrations, since we end up bringing the most people, and really anything else we're going to have to whip up at our house is easy compared to peeling 20 pounds of potatoes. Oh, and then transporting said potatoes to Provo. It's going to be weird to not root out every bowl in the house to move mounds of mashed potatoes - but good, too. Also, we have all power to determine when we start eating and we don't have to travel anywhere for the initial dinner. And having my own bed to crash in afterward is going to be heaven, rather than finding a nook somewhere in my grandparent's house to grab some Zs.

What's funny is that dinner at my house every night is like my friend Caryn's Thanksgiving dinners every year. I told her about the change in the amount of people for me, and she said her Thanksgiving was changing, too - she was adding on her sister's fiance for a grand total of seven people all around her table. Wow - I'll tell ya what, wow.

Also, this Christmas season (yes, it has started already, no matter how much I don't want it to be here before Thanksgiving) I've started my Christmas shopping early and it's weird. Being in college the last four years meant the only extra money I got for Christmas shopping came from book buyback the last week of the semester, which was like the second or third week of December. I would then scramble for presents for everyone, getting done the 24th-ish.

This year, I started a few weeks ago. It was weird - I drew up a list and just started shopping, mostly on Amazon. It was because I realized I had extra money from a paycheck to do it, and people on Facebook were starting to talk about it in their statuses.

Also, I take pride in giving people thoughtful gifts that they don't necessarily ask for, and usually I can come up with something pretty quickly for everyone I know. This year has been harder than normal, though. Mostly it's because I feel like a failure when I ask people what they actually want and then get them exactly that.

Yeah.

I'm weird.

A semi-political post *gasp

2008-11-12T12:45:00.001-08:00

*Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!

This is the captain of the blog speaking. I'd just like to let you know we're making an un-scheduled stop at Political Land for a short time. Thank you for your patience and enjoy the ride.

When I started this blog, I pretty much promised myself I would never venture into political waters. This mostly stems from my desire to avoid conflict at all costs. This was hard when I was editor of the opinion section in college, but I even mostly managed that. I believe we got the least letters to the editor the Scroll ever received in its history.

But here I am doing it anyway. I guess it has to do with my beliefs and an epiphany, too, so now that my rationalization's done, I'm going to get on with my actual story.

Has anyone else noticed that Facebook is starting to become a political forum? Mostly it's the notes people write. It's weird, and usually I stay well away from them, kind of how I like to stay away from political things in this blog. However, when it's something I feel passionate about, I sometimes make a comment or two.

One of my friends posted a video of the countdown show Keith Olbermann does - in this episode, he basically talks about how no one has compassion who votes for Prop 8 and how it's all about love and we should extend love to people who want a same-sex marriage and allow them to marry. Shortly after it's posted, the author of the note and another one of my friends had a discussion about it, and eventually agreed to disagree.

I was going to insert exactly what I said and what the young man who had a debate with me said, too, but the friend who posted the note deleted me from her friends list, so I can't. She didn't even talk to me about it. This is what makes me so mad/sad. Can I not express my opinion and beliefs without getting shunned from the very same people who desire compassion and acceptance? Seriously? Why is having a religious opinion a second-class opinion? Cody sent around excerpts from a talk by Neal A. Maxwell that totally nails this on the head.

"Your discipleship may see the time when such religious convictions are discounted. M. J. Sobran also said, “A religious conviction is now a second-class conviction, expected to step deferentially to the back of the secular bus, and not to get uppity about it” (Human Life Review, Summer 1978, pp. 58–59)."

"This new irreligious imperialism seeks to disallow certain opinions simply because those opinions grow out of religious convictions. Resistance to abortion will be seen as primitive. Concern over the institution of the family will be viewed as untrendy and unenlightened..."

"If people, however, are not permitted to advocate, to assert, and to bring to bear, in every legitimate way, the opinions and views they hold which grow out of their religious convictions, what manner of men and women would we be?..."

I got it and was like, "Wow. That's exactly what happened to me!" Now to tell you exactly what happened.

Main feel for my first comment on the video: I said I believed that marriage should be between a man and woman and I held that sacred. To change that would to be to desecrate it, therefore treading upon my rights and what I hold sacred. Also, I said that the Church had commented that they don't mind if same sex couples have the legal rights, and isn't it basically the same thing, therefore?

This guy responded and said it was the ultimate show of love and if it was the same thing then why did people get married ever? He also asked what I would feel like if I couldn't marry the girl or guy I loved. Then he said that marriage is between a man and a woman is a legal definition, not a spiritual one, and therefore I can't believe in it. Also, he asked how it would personally hurt me if he married another man.

I said I was just responding to Olbermann's comment about how it was all about love - and that his belief that marriage was the ultimate sign of love was a BELIEF. Maybe not from God, but it was a belief either way. Nothing concrete to back it up. It kind of dawned on me then that beliefs might not all come from God, but everyone has them, whether they want to call them that or not. Most call them opinions. And if you do get them from God, lots of times people want to discount them. Also, why can't I believe something that's also a law? I believe murder is wrong, and it's also a law.

The problem is, in this argument, religion is where my side is coming from and if people against Prop 8 won't allow religion to come into the conversation, they won't be able to understand why we do what we do. No wonder there's all this animosity and hatred - it seems like we have no opinions, except those icky religious ones. *wipes dripping sarcasm from face.

How the conversation ended with this guy went a little like this: "I started reading your comment and then I saw there was God and religion in it, so I stopped. Keep God out of it!" Except not in such nice language. Wow. Again, this from someone who wants understanding and compassion. I thought I was being rational and reasonable, but apparently religious comments are unreasonable and irrational.

My beliefs don't matter but his does. Because the more I think about it, the more it IS a belief that same sex couples should be able to get married. That's all it is. If you don't agree with it you're shunned and not as politically correct, but I have a right to my beliefs, too.

No matter Who they're from.

Mouse update

2008-11-03T11:13:00.001-08:00

I mostly want to post about what we think happened to the little mouse I liberated a few posts ago.

He died.

Or we're pretty sure he died. Becca started smelling something rank in her room, like something had died. A small rodent, perhaps? She thought he died under her dresser since her clothes were starting to smell awful, and demanded I move it and remove the body. (Hee hee...if all anyone read in this post was that line, that would be hilarious. :)) I thought that was reasonable and attempted to do so, but, alas, there wasn't anything there to remove.

She tore apart her room and found the same thing. Or didn't find the same thing, I guess. Plugging up any and all holes in her room at floor-level became the solution. We think he crawled in one of them and promptly died.

So my liberating was all pretty much for nothing. Except that he got a few more days of life. That's good, right? At this point, I've decided I can't really do anything about it and beating myself up about it doesn't help any. I'll probably be sucking up to Becca for the rest of my life because of this...and oh well.

Anyone know a good way to buy off an angry sister with an rank-smelling room?

Madame Butterfly - I can't forgive Pinkerton

2008-10-24T15:17:00.000-07:00

It's been a crazy couple of days at work, so this post is a little belated, seeing as I saw Madame Butterfly on Wednesday, but it's still a good thing to think about so I'm writing about it anyway.

First off, here's a Reader's Digest synopsis of Madame Butterfly: This US Navy Lieutenant named Pinkerton wants a Japanese wife while working in Nagasaki. He negotiates a house and wife - his wife's name is roughly translated as Butterfly in English. He leaves her, telling her he'll be back in the spring.

Three years later he does come back, after everyone told her he wouldn't ever come back and she was unfailingly loyal, but the only reason he's back is to pick up the son they conceived while he was there three years ago. He says it's to give the son a better life in America with his new American wife. Butterfly is told of this plan and says Pinkerton can have their son if he comes to get him - Pinkerton bolted before she came out of her room. She kills herself just in time for Pinkerton to catch her dead body.

It was AMAZING - hands-down awe-inspiring. The colors, set, lights, costumes, emotion and the singing were all spell-binding. The little boy was especially well-trained and disciplined. He caught the audience's attention and hearts and kept it there when he was on stage - when he was supposed to be asleep, he would lay still even when the orchestra was going crazy, cymbals and all.

Getting to the discussion part of this post: there was an essay in the program about forgiving Pinkerton for his actions because he was young and foolish, sucked in by the contract culture of Japan; he thought his marriage would be a contract he could nullify anytime without undue consequences.

I don't buy it. As me and my mom talked about it, people can have character at any time of their life, and they should. Being young is no excuse for anything - especially marrying someone and then leaving them to wait for your arrival, which he promised would happen in less than a year. He knew what he was getting into. One of the conversations with his friend during the wedding scene is a warning to consider Butterfly's feelings and to not take the marriage lightly. How young would he have to be to have the responsibility of a lieutenant on a ship? Also, if all he wanted were *ahem* intimate relations, why didn't he just pick up a geisha instead of marry one? He said it was because he wanted to capture the Butterfly for good. How incredibly selfish can you get?

Even at the end, he supposedly wants what's best for his son by taking him to America with him, but he doesn't consider Butterfly at all. So, what is she supposed to do - go back to being a geisha? I love that his cowardice won't even allow him to face her until she's dying. Okay, I don't really. He says he's sorry for what he's done, but he can't even tell her that to her face.

I think Puccini probably painted him this way on purpose - as the antagonist of his opera - but even at the end when he's supposed to have his redemption, I wasn't feeling it. Are you?

Of mice and women - to kill or not to kill

2008-10-15T14:09:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, two bad cliches in one blog title...just bear with me.

With Becca being as crazy busy as she is these days, and with me being moderately crazy busy as I am, there are days when we don't see each other at all in a day.

So, I try to make an effort to see her when I can - usually keeping her up needlessly at night after I get home early from some rendezvous with Caryn.

In one of these awesome times the other night I noticed something moving in her window well.

"AH!" I screamed.

Okay - I didn't really scream. Although, one of my friends had a peeping tom hop in her window well, so I guess I had a valid reason to be scared. But Becca allayed my fears.

"That's just the mouse living in my window well," Becca said.

"Um...kay," I said. "So, what are you going to do with him?"

"Mom told me to leave it in there," Becca replied.

"What?"

Now - I'm not an animal lover or anything - I don't parade around in picket lines with "Oxen free!" written all over signs I've made - but when it comes to letting an innocent creature die, I don't feel that great about it. Especially in a cold, cold window well.

Therefore, I decided to capture him in the window well and let him free into the wild.

As always, life never turns out as you plan it. He ran away from me and hid in the corner of the window well for a solid five or ten minutes, meaning I had to climb in there to attempt to trap him.

Yup - he came out of the open window and into Becca's room as soon as I climbed in there.

Another ten good minutes was spent chasing him from under her bed, then to under the dresser, then back to under the bed, at which point Becca pointed out that no one needed to know there was a mouse in the house.

I agreed, but it didn't necessarily mean Becca had my back, since she told my mom the next night.

Benedict Arnold. I mean, I heart you Becca! :) And you, Mr. Mouse.

An A to the MR (An Adventure to Mt. Rushmore)

2008-10-01T10:08:00.000-07:00

*Length warning- this post is rather long...

Well all, I finally did a pretty huge thing on my bucket list - I went to Mt. Rushmore.

The whole idea started with National Treasure 2 - Caryn, Lisa and I were all watching it and all of a sudden I said, "I've always wanted to go to Mt. Rushmore, but my dad didn't want to and so we never did as a family. He said there wasn't anything else to see around there and he didn't want to drive forever just for Mt. Rushmore."

Caryn turned to me and told me it was the same way for her in her family.

"Me and my roommate were going to go there Spring Break, but it never happened," Caryn said.

"Let's take a trip there sometime soon," I said, rather spur of the moment.

"Done," Caryn said.

Sometimes these kinds of things get talked about but never actually executed - and I thought this might turn out to be one of those things.

I sometimes get bored at work, and subsequently, one day I looked up what kinds of other things there are around Mt. Rushmore. I was a little surprised to find hot springs, a giant maze, paint ball, rock climbing walls, go-karts and horseback riding. We also figured out that Mt. Rushmore was about 9 hours from West Jordan - and actually started planning the trip.

The only problems came the week of: namely, Caryn's car breaking down, my car not getting the tune-up it needed and no one being able to go with us.

It was looking grim until Caryn called her sister, Adriane, who not only would let us borrow her car but wanted to come with us, too.

We left Friday night at 7:30ish and drove our brains out - switching every two hours until we got into Casper, Wyoming at 3 a.m. - which was not to be our last visit there. We got off the freeway about then, and since we hadn't really planned on staying the night there, we didn't know where to go.

Joy. So, there we were at 3:30 a.m., driving around, checking hotels in Casper, Wyoming, feeling cranky and tired. Finally, we caved and stayed in the Holiday Express Inn, which was like $130. Dah! Who knew rooms could be so durn expensive? I now understand why my dad never wanted to stay at a hotel. Yes, yes, I know - I admit it.

We decided to get directions from the hotel at the "business center" and promptly were on our way to Hill City, South Dakota, to our KOA campsite.

Lots and lots more driving later, we were there. Or, at least, we were pretty sure we were there - we drove past it before we realized we had missed the turn-off. After turning around, we saw the men on the mountain - which was my introduction to Mt. Rushmore.

The Park was amazing - we started out in information, where Caryn and Adriane decided they wanted to become Junior Rangers. I decided I did not - mostly because my siblings had to do it at many national parks they visited, and I rebelled where they could not. :)

We started in the hall of flags - every flag of every state in the good ol' US led the way to a great overview of Mt. Rushmore. We took our first pictures with it here.

Then, somehow, hot poses started...

Then it was time to go to the museum, with all sorts of facts about Mt. Rushmore and the presidents and the sculptor who dreamed it up. We watched a 13-minute movie on it - and I correctly guessed that it was Tom Brokaw who was narrating. Boo-yah!

I was pretty much amazed at all that went into carving four presidents on the mountain. I guess I never really thought about what it would take, from the conceptualization to the actually blasting: 17 years. The sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, had a vision about making presidents he viewed as the founders and shapers of the nation immortal in rock - he was an incredibly dedicated, well-thought out man. He actually died before he finished it completely.

90% of the rock removal was done by dynamite - which I thought was pretty cool.

This is a to-scale picture of an eye. It was slightly creepy...

From there, it was time to "hike" around the base of the mountain. And take more pictures.

At the end of the trail was the sculptor's cabin - where it had the scale model they used to carve the mountain. It was closed, but you could kinda see in if you blocked the light out. We were sad it wasn't open.

Then it was time for Caryn and Adriane to get sworn in as junior rangers and get souvenirs. My favorite were mugs with "Mt. Rusmore" on them, although the Mt. Rushmore pocketknives were also hilarious. Hee hee...

We then ran to the Black Hills Maze - thinking we'd have a good two hours to get lost in the maze before they closed. Except they looked pretty much closed for good - with a fence and everything.

We were sad.

So, instead we drove farther in Rapid City and found a place to eat called Firehouse Brewing Company. It has amazing food - like awesomely amazing.

And we got plastic fire helmets.

It was time to go back to our campsite, get nice and fire-smelling, almost set the tent on fire, watch part of X-men before my lappy died and turn in for the night.

We awoke to fire-toast, courtesy Adriane and the grill attached to the fire pit, and hilarious neighbors on a month-long cross-country trip. We packed up and headed to church in Casper, Wyoming.

After church we went to On the Border - a pretty good Mexican place that they don't have in Utah, but they do have in Texas, where Adriane lived for awhile. Except the service pretty much stunk - Adriane didn't get her order correct initially and even after an hour, had barely received the correct food. We were all kind of razzled at that point, and therefore didn't blink twice before deciding to go north on I-25.

Yeah- big whoops. About Buffalo, Wyomingish, we realized our folly and turned around. We'd already lost an hour and a half, so three hours round trip later, we were back in the hated Casper, filling up yet again, anticipating another good six hours to get home.

Of course, it's this time some deer decided to cross the highway - three at the same time, right in front of me driving. Ah, slamming on the brakes. Thank the heavens for anti-lock brakes.

After that, Caryn and I talked for the rest of the time, in between listening to music on my iPod and trying not to fall asleep.

I finally got to sleep about 1:30, safe and sound in my own bed. And thus ended the Mt. Rushmore adventure.

Nothing like some controversy on a Tuesday

2008-09-23T15:42:00.000-07:00

So, as part of The Park Record newspaper, I get to lay out the pages for the Scene section of the paper. The lead story was about the Body World exhibit that's being put on in Salt Lake. Basically, the idea is that people donate their bodies to science and the scientists preserve the bodies by injecting them with plastic to preserve them, so they can kind of peel away the different parts of skin or muscle to reveal the bone structure or nerve interconnections or whatnot.

Everything was going along fine and dandy until I printed out pages for the copy editor to look at and she saw that the genitals of the male skier were intact. She then asked us to crop it out of the picture.

This is said offensive picture. (Should I not be posting this?)

Although I'm not one to normally support keeping possibly offensive pictures in the newspaper, I kind of felt somehow that this was a little different. The editor's point was that if they didn't want to see the exhibit and would be offended by the complete realness bodies, we shouldn't force them to do so through the pictures. But, really, I think what she was trying to say was if they didn't want to see that certain part of the exhibit we shouldn't force them - we were already kind of "forcing" them to see the exhibit through putting in any pictures of it at all.

Also, what qualifies as art? I mean, yes, it is a real human, but it's not at the same time. The process to preserve them kind of makes them a statue or model more than anything else. The David is kind of the same idea - I wonder if we would put a picture of that in the paper...

Another controversial point about the exhibit is that it's taking bodies, which we know are sacred, and kind of manipulating them, but it IS educating people about how the body works...

I just don't think these are things that are cut and dried - but do you?

Car #2 - Let's try to keep this one a little longer, eh?

2008-09-18T11:32:00.000-07:00

Well, after a long and arduous search, and much pain and whining, I finally have my second car in a little under three months.

My dad was definitely one of the proponents for my finding a car, which I didn't really blame him for since it's harder to juggle cars when I don't have one, but sometimes I just got tired of looking for cars, especially when things happened like I would go to test drive a car and it would be bought while I was out giving it a test drive. It all just felt so fruitless and frustrating, but my dad convinced me to keep on keepin' on.

So I guess it was only appropriate that he was the one to find my car, eh?

He was on ksl.com, which he had been for basically that whole weekend nonstop, early Saturday morning and woke me with, "I just found a great car. Here's the phone number. Call them and set up a test drive in the next 20 minutes." I sleepily accepted the outstretched phone and did just that.

It was for a black 1994 Camry LXE - which means it was a luxury edition with leather seats, sunroof and CD player. It had 177,000 miles - which was a lot, but since it was a Camry, we decided it would last for at least another 100,000 miles - and for the price of $1,300, which it was listed under, it pretty much couldn't be beat.

We headed to Sandy, got there and met the dad of the owner of the car.

"It's my son's car - he was our youngest son and he just left for college, so he needs the money more than the car."

And with that, he gave us the keys, telling us that the sunroof wasn't completely sealed and the passenger's side door handle was broken. Besides that, he said, it was pretty good for 177,000 miles and 15 years old. We agreed - the exterior especially looked really good for how old it was.

Pulling out of the driveway, we went to the freeway and decided to test it out at high speeds. It smoothly transitioned from gear to gear, and I was quickly falling in love with it.

"Let's have Roger look at it," my dad suggested. Roger is his/our mechanic.

I agreed, but it was like a 20 minute drive from the car owner's house to Roger's house.

"I don't want him to think we stole it," I protested.

"He won't. We left the Prizm, remember?" my dad insisted.

Ah, yes. The Prizm. I then realized how awesome of a scam it would be to drive a piece of crap car to test drive a nicer car, and never come back. Heck, let them have that piece of 3-cylinder...love. :) Not that I didn't enjoy having a car to get to work - I did. It was just incredibly frustrating to putt up Parley's every day at 30 mph.

I finally convinced him that we needed to call them and tell them of our plan, and so we did so. It went to the machine and I basically told them we weren't stealing the car, and we actually wanted to buy it. Roger wasn't home, but we decided to go through with it anyway. I drove to the credit union, took out the money and went back to the house.

We chatted, accepted the price, listened while he explained that his price was way below anything you could get decently, patiently agreed, and listened to him ramble a little more about what had been done to the car in the last year or so. We wrote on a bill of sale all the necessary information, and I proceeded three times to count out the money while he was paying attention. He pretty much never paid attention and said he trusted me - so I gave up and my dad gave up telling me to count it while he paid attention.

He said he had a plate that was from another car, with registration that didn't expire until November. Only problem was, it wouldn't match up with the car if someone ran a check, so we took it off.

When I brought it home and told Becca of my happy news, she almost sobbed with joy she was so happy. Actually, a lot of my friends found out from Becca that I got a new car, before I was able to tell them, but that was fine. I understand her excitement. When you have to drive to school and work every day, it sucks to drive the van or get dropped off and picked up.

I asked her to christen and name my new car, since that's what she did for the old one.

"Do we have a bottle of wine around here?" she asked.

And, of course, we didn't. We didn't even have any sparkling cider. Darn.

But she took a gander at it and I told her it was pretty posh - leather seats, sunroof, CD player and all. She wanted to name it Posh, but my mom said it looked sleek and stealthy, too, and could we think of a name that incorporated all three aspects into it? I think then she suggested James, as in James Bond. He's posh, stealthy AND sleek. It stuck.

He's basically my love right now - I'm infatuated, I'll admit it. Pictures to come, to make you all jealous. ;)

Nickelcade=fun...and exercise?

2008-09-08T13:57:00.000-07:00

One of the more ignored things on our Bucket List this summer was going to Nickelcade - mostly because Lisa wasn't that excited about going, so we waited until she went back up to school to head to this semi-shady hangout for middle schoolers, high schoolers and a few post-graduates of college.

My hazy memories of Nickelcade involve Skeeball, basketball games, tons of luck games, semi-dirty carpet and lots of younger kids, so I was interested to see if it had changed at all. Mostly it hadn't - even from what I remember.

Although there were a lot more "knock the nickel off the edge of the precipice to get tickets" games than I remember from before. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I'll try to explain: you put your nickel in the slot (usually at the top of the machine) and it usually went through a series of pegs and such, until it dropped at the bottom, where various machines were going back and forth (but not over the entire ledge), pushing nickels off of the surface your nickel just dropped onto. But sometimes yours wouldn't push other nickels off - just get stuck on top of the pile that was right on the edge of where the machines were pushing. Also, you couldn't shake the machine or jostle it in any way, or your tickets were forfeited.

(This is the best picture I could find to represent the game- except instead of giving you your money back, it gave you tickets.)

I was the best at the soccer one - you could knock nickels off or shoot them into a hole for extra tickets - or both. I got the grand prize of 80 tickets for shooting it past the goalie into the barely-nickel-size hole. And I was proud.

Caryn was pretty good at the driving/flying/shooting games, and Becca was amazing at the game where you hit a button right when a moving light was in a certain place - she won the jackpot three times at that game. She was also really good at air hockey - she beat Caryn and me for the title of champion. Also, through her dedication she won a Harley Davidson-shirt-sporting stuffed eagle from a crane game - which she doesn't know what to do with now. But she won it all the same. ;)

Something else Caryn was good at was something I'd never tried: DDR. I was worried that I was so bad that I couldn't have anyone watch me do it for the first time, much less keep up with Caryn and play with her. But I did both - I bit the bullet and attempted to dance to six songs. It was a lot of fun - and a pretty good workout, too. My only sad thing is that they have nothing between novice and easy - and it's quite a leap in skill.

I've been trying to figure out what I'm going to do for exercise, and I think I might try DDR...I've found some TV-hookup ones that don't require a PS or XBOX - but are they any good?

"Let's put one of those beefy arms back on for good measure"

2008-08-25T13:39:00.000-07:00

If wishes were fishes, I'd have a bionic car.

I have been looking for a car - either a shell that I can put my engine into or just a cheap car, and having varied luck. Right now I'm waiting to hear back from a guy who has a 97 Civic where the engine doesn't work but everything else does. Perfect, right?

But, as I wait, I just can't help but look eagerly down my street every time I come home, hoping that the Car Fairy has visited and left me a gift - either a new car or just my fixed old one.

But I'm disappointed each time I come around the corner of Damascus Way and see my decrepit, sad-looking pile of what once was Phil, my marvelous car.

Since we had a block party on our front lawn, all the neighbors had a front-seat view of my lovely hunk of metal and I had the, "What happened?" question asked more than once. With each tale, they all commented that they were glad I was okay and that it was much easier to fix a car than a person.

I disagree.

I mean, at this point, if I were given a choice between breaking my leg and having my car be completely fine or having a totaled car and not a scratch on me, I would take the broken leg, which would eventually heal. In fact, as much time as it's taking for me to fix my car, my leg would probably have been healed by now!

Which made me want bionic cars to be made into a reality - the type that can regrow parts of itself, if only given time and a splint or two. Cars would last forever! Or, actually, they would probably have the same life of a person, which would probably be like having a dog. Or more like having a spouse, actually. :)

I guess there would be repercussions to the car industry, though - more than there already are- and then unemployment would be huge and we'd be plunged into the Great Depression II, but I still think it's worth a try. Here's one solution for keeping mechanics employed: there could be car hospitals where mechanics could take care of your car while it healed for just as much as they charged before. Or even as much as a hospital charges.

Which makes me want to talk about tow trucks - holy flippin' cow! They charge a ton of money to do something I could do for like maybe $50, and that's with a $20 tip to me! I know towing companies are a necessity when you need to get your car somewhere and so they think they can charge more for a needed service, but I think it's unethical how much they charge.

I think if one towing company brought their prices way down and everyone started using them, the other companies would have to follow suit to stay in business. Maybe I'm naive. Alright - I know I am. But it's just a thought about improving their method. I'd improve their method if I had a bionic car with beefy arms - or arm, actually.

The Shirt Social Experiment

2008-08-08T10:14:00.000-07:00

So, as usual, I was in a hurry to get dressed and out the door yesterday, and in the process I guess I put my shirt on inside out. I didn't realize I'd done it until I got to work and almost stepped out of the car. I rolled my eyes, and promised myself I'd switch my shirt as soon as I clocked in and got a few things done.

By the time I remembered to fix it, two hours had passed, which brought out the Sociologist in me - after all, it was my minor - and I wondered how long it would take people to realize and/or tell me about my wardrobe malfunction.

It took all day.

I chatted with the production staff a lot and we even went out for ice cream for one of the coworker's birthdays, and I got no response.

Just as I went to clock out, Amanda - the person who's the editor of the alternative publication The Flipside - asked if she was just not up on fashion and that my shirt was inside out. I laughed, told her of my story and almost simultaneously had about three more people tell me my shirt was inside out, even thought they hadn't heard the story.

So, I decided that every day I'm going to walk by Amanda and have her check me out for any possible dressing foibles I might have committed in the morning - and maybe not worry about the production staff caring and/or noticing.

P.S. Apparently inside out IS the fashion statement for some people. Weird.

The Erradication of a Life That Had Just Begun

2008-08-06T11:25:00.000-07:00

So, I almost decided to not write about my car accident, but it's the most exciting/least boring thing about me right now. Besides fulfilling going to the Planetarium on Saturday with my BFFs and seeing a 3D movie about the ocean, narrated by Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet.

Yes, it's true, I killed my car - almost less than a month after purchasing it. I haven't even started making payments on it - although those are coming all too soon.

I think I've told my story to almost everyone - I've become quite good at it since I've told it about 7 billion times. So, sorry if you've heard this one. It's weird - when people find out you've pretty much killed your car, they want to know how you did it.

Okay, so I was driving home from work, down Parley's Canyon (so, going east on I-80), in the right lane ('cause I like to kind of coast at about 60 or 65 and not use gas as much as I can) and I noticed a semi in the right lane with its lights flashing, showing that it was going slow.

I thought I could go around it, so although I did slow down a bit, I didn't seriously put on my brakes. I checked over my shoulder at the middle lane, noting its fullness, and by the time I brought my head back around to see what was happening, the semi was right in front of me - it was going a lot slower than I originally thought it was.

I slammed on my brakes and fishtailed out of the road into the ditch by the side of the freeway. My airbags deployed, giving me some nice burns and bruises, but besides that I wasn't hurt in any way.

The ambulance quickly came, checked me to make sure I was okay, and left. Then came the police - a Summit County policeman, then a Utah Highway Patrolman. They checked yet again to make sure I was okay, and I called my dad to let him know what happened. I filled out an accident report and waited for the tow truck.

My dad got there by that time, and he called the insurance agency and talked with the tow truck driver and the police officer - and gave me a big hug. That was helpful when I got ticketed for not staying within one lane. Kind of lame, in my opinion, but I guess I might've been going pretty fast - even though I've NEVER seen a semi going that slowly on I-80 before - even in the canyon.

We followed the tow truck back to an auto body shop my dad had used before, and paid the tow truck driver with cash I snagged from my savings account. We then went home, anticipating what would happen to Phil.

The next day, I got a call from my dad, telling me to call the insurance agency and tell them what my ticket was for. The insurance agent then told me my car was pretty much totaled, according to that auto body shop where we took my car. I was pretty bummed that I would have to buy another car so soon after I bought my first one, but I was happy, thinking my car was covered.

Then I got home from work.

My dad told me my car wasn't covered collision-wise - which seemed smart at the time I bought insurance, since all the books on insurance say to not cover cars 10 years or older with collision, since the premium is really high and if you total it you only get the worth of the car, which isn't much when the car is old.

To sum it up: a car I just bought was totaled and I had to buy another car, while still paying for the first one.

I cried, but my dad suggested we see if the shop could do a quick fix, sans cosmetic things like paint, for less than the worth of the car. I don't remember how much they said that would be, but it was still a lot. Then my dad had my neighbor look at it, and he estimated it would be about $1,900 all around - although he didn't look under the hood and was known for underestimating repair costs lately.

I wanted to just have him fix my car and get on with life, when my dad came up with an idea: my engine was fine - why couldn't we just take my good engine and put it in a better body? Right now, I'm willing to play his game, but when I told my boss my dad's idea, he said it would probably be a crapshoot - getting a car that would fit my engine, with a decent body for a low amount of money would be hard to find. I've been looking on ksl.com and craigslist, as well as googling everything to do with a Honda Civic and a body, coming up with a few hits for late '80s/early 90s cars, but mostly nothing.

Everything in me wishes I could go back to that moment and do something different than what I did, but what happens happens and you have to deal with what you've done and what happens to you, I guess, which leaves me feeling fine and other people feeling disconcerted that I'm so calm.

So, I guess what I'm saying is: anybody have a crappy 1997 Honda Civic they want to sell me? Or know where I can find one?

The Living Planet Aquarium slideshow

2008-08-01T11:04:00.001-07:00

Red Lobster - check

2008-07-31T15:20:00.000-07:00

One of the things on our "Bucket List" (if you don't know what I'm talking about, you can read this post) was to try lobster. Now, I'm not a very big seafood fan, so I was a bit wary of this one, but heck - that lobster on all the commercials sure looked tasty, even after we read the pamphlet at the Aquarium about being sure to get fresh seafood so as not to get food poisoning, which is hard to find in Utah.

When Caryn and I went to look at some housing on Saturday, we were right by a Red Lobster. This was one of the only places we could figure had lobster - since they didn't have it at Joe's Crab Shack (yes, I know it says Crab, but we figured they might have other seafood, too, and they do, except not lobster) or any other place we'd gone like Chili's or Applebee's.

As we walked in, the first thing we saw was a GIANT tank of lobster, hanging out at the front of the restaurant. We knew we were in the right place. Caryn decided she wanted a picture in front of the lobster tank, gesturing how big of a lobster she wanted. Or had caught. Or maybe she was acting like a lobster with claws? I never really asked. They were scary-looking buggers, with giant eyes and claws.

Anyway, we finally got beyond the front and got seated. Our hostess came and brought us the fish of the day list and our menus.

"Don't get this kind," she said, pointing to one of those listed. "It's disgusting. Well, it's not disgusting, it just doesn't taste like anything."

We were like, "Thanks for your honesty. Okey dokey - we won't get that type of fish."

She took our orders for waters and left us to decide.

Dang, Gina- lobster's expensive. We looked at all the dishes with lobster, which all topped out at $24 - I might never have had lobster, but I still didn't like seafood that much and wasn't willing to risk not liking something with $24 in the mix.

We finally found the lobster and shrimp pasta, with an alfredo sauce, that wasn't outrageously expensive. Also, since we were feeling adventurous, we tried a seafood platter appetizer with bacon-wrapped mussels, fried clams, and mushrooms stuffed with crab and lobster - to give us a taste of lobster before getting our main course.

We were brought our salads with honey mustard (delicious!) and our appetizer. I was wary, but enjoyed the fried clams and mushrooms - although the mussels weren't too bad, just slimy.

Then the main course came out. I promptly gave all the shrimp to Caryn. My first bite was...interesting. It definitely tasted fishy, but it wasn't too bad. Caryn pointed out that the texture was kind of velvety, which I agree with. It's not too bad - until it gets stuck in your teeth. Ew.

The more I ate it, the more I decided that it was okay, but basically like every other kind of seafood I'd ever had - not very palatable, but edible.

My favorite part of the meal was the chocolate chip cookie filled with chocolate and topped with ice cream. I have a love affair with chocolate. Seafood's more like an acquaintance that's not particularly liked - I can deal with it when I have to, but I'd rather not.

Ah, the things we learn about ourselves.

Iiiii hate technology. But not as much as it hates me.

2008-07-28T14:52:00.000-07:00

This is caonduty's photo, originally posted to his flickr account. You can see this picture in context and visit his flickr site here.

I was thinking this weekend and past week about how much technology gives me pain - it's everywhere I go. I pretty much can't escape it, no matter how hard I try, and I'm not trying really.

But sometimes it's frustrating to no end. I've always been of the opinion and mindset that if you tinker with something long enough, you can find what you need. Yet, no amount of tinkering gives me the results I want for some things, even when I enlist Google's help.

The ClearPlay filter my parents own is probably one of the most frustrating pieces of machinery I've ever come up against. It shouldn't be as hard as it is, in my opinion. I always think I have the filter on the CD the first time, and then load it into the DVD player only to find nothing registers. Also, I'd already downloaded a filter for The Fugitive, only to find it not loaded on there when I put the DVD in. I've spent a good hour to two hours of my life downloading and redownloading things onto CD for ClearPlay.

This photo was originally on spillingcoffee.com.

Another quite frustrating thing is my little brother's iPod I inherited when he went on a mission. It has the annoying habit of not appearing on any computer's desktop or in anyone's iTunes, meaning I can't manipulate the music at all - to add or delete things. I went online to several forums, but they all had different opinions, many of them with Mac commands attached. The main machine this iPod links to is a PC. So I eventually gave up with that one.

This photo was originally on funkyuncensored.wordpress.com

Another great headache right now is my own laptop not connecting to the internet. I share bandwidth with my parent's DSL modem, and it works on their computer but not mine. Also, when my sister tried plugging in her laptop, it worked, too. I hear it has something to do with my IP address, but I'm lost after anything beyond that. I tinkered with it for about an hour, thinking I'd fixed it several times, before finally giving up.

I guess I've finally decided that technology wins. I give up. At least, until I get my second wind and tinker some more...

For the love...of dogs and kissing people

2008-07-25T15:36:00.001-07:00

So, I know it's unusual for me to blog like twice in one week, but stay with me people. :) I couldn't not write about this absurd ad I had to build for the paper.

Every once in awhile I get classified ads that I have to build, and they're pretty small and nice so I don't mind doing them. It said on the description that it was an announcement, and it was two columns by eight inches. Then I opened the text and pictures.

It was a dog obituary.

Yes - a dog obituary.

Not only was it a dog obituary, but the language was so flowery and glowing, you'd think it was for...I dunno, maybe a person? Some people don't even get obituaries this good.

I'm having trouble uploading the finished obituary, but it was pretty simple- just this text with some pictures of the dog:

"A Loving Farewell to Painter

On Friday, July 11th, 2008 our white, fluffy, adorable Samoyed went to heaven. After nearly 14 years in Park City, Painter had become a canine celebrity – known and loved by many. Officially named “Painter Polarmist Mover-n-Shaker Keiser,” he had the bloodline and show qualities to be a show dog. His life, however, took a much more adventurous turn — and couldn’t have been further from Westminster. From snowmobiling in Guardsman, to jet setting to Long Beach Island each summer, “P-Ball” lived a life many would envy. His publicist estimates he has appeared in this paper dozens of times, was featured on the Today Show during the Olympics as well as a segment on Extra TV.

All bragging aside, he was the most dependable man in this town we may ever know – in part, because he was a great communicator and could ask for what he wanted. He was loving and furry, and adorable with the most perfect bear face – while always looking regal. He knew how to take care of his girls, and loved a great hike, and to chill out with his mother Lauren. Often referred to by his family as “The Prince of Park City” or “The Prince of LBI” – they know he can never be replaced and say he will be missed deeply. His favorite things included string cheese, puppies and steak bones. Thank you to Dr. Barbe for helping him over the years. We know he is in a happy place now with his good doggie friends.

Painter, you will be with us always.
Painter 1994 - 2008"

Gag me with a spoon.

Now, moving to Park City meant adapting to the lifestyle. One of the things to adapt to was people and their pets up here. Spending big money on their pets is second nature to them - they're like their kids. Spending $400 on knee surgery is an obvious choice. Or taking them to be groomed every week at $100 a pop. I mean, there are people in other areas that do that, but it seems in Park City there are more of them. But a pet obituary that calls a DOG "the most dependable man in town"? Or says "You will be with us always"?

I'm not a pet hater, and I semi-understand how people can dote on them when they don't have children, or even when they do. But shouldn't the insanity stop at a burial in the backyard with a funeral?

On to other rants in the personal paragraphs page of the Park Record...we do engagement announcements and this one was of a couple, obviously, and their picture was of them kissing. Now, I'm not too adverse to PDA, and their kiss isn't that bad, as you can see from the attached picture, but when I have to arrange a page and see that picture glaring out from it as I go along every step of the production process, it kinda gets annoying. I will probably not announce my engagement in a paper, but if I do I will not have a kissing picture and I will certainly not have a kissing picture in my wedding announcement.

Who wants kissing people on their fridge? Anyone out there? I barely want them on this post. Any other annoyances with wedding announcements? A few of mine would be awkward poses to show the ring off, a hundred million pictures and no originality - or too much.

Huh - maybe I'm just picky.

Or maybe it's the end of a production day.

The Aquarium Adventure

2008-07-23T09:44:00.000-07:00

Since I have two of my very best friends living close to me (Lisa and Caryn) we've decided to draw up a Bucket List of sorts to make sure we get everything done we want to do this summer. One of those things on the list was to go the Living Aquarium in Sandy, which we just did this past Saturday.

It was awesome. I know I'm 22 and maybe shouldn't be excited at going to a zoo of sorts, but it was really cool. It had exhibits of wildlife from Utah, deep ocean fish and other animals, and a petting zoo. We saw jellyfish and coral and rainbow trout and sting rays, and even a few small sharks.

This picture is from the Deseret News, Ryan Long took it.

We learned that coral are considered animals (although Caryn already knew that) and and in one aquarium in Georgia, 800 million gallons of water are cycled through every day. That was probably the most interesting part - watching the movie on people who take care of that aquarium in Georgia. Most were incredibly attached to the animals and talked about them like children, which I doubt any of them had - although I can't be positive. Favorite quote: "I don't eat my lunch or dinner until I know the animals get their lunch and dinner." Psychotic behavior?

The petting zoo was cool - although we could only touch the bat rays, not the fish. They felt like soft, squishy, semi-slimy foam. We also touched some spiky star fish and sea cucumbers. Yes, we put a bunch of hand sanitizer all over our arms afterward.

We took some awesome pictures in the little nooks and crannies of a kind of kid's playground - the best was a crab that had his claws just open enough to hold cards.

The gift shop was pretty cool as well - I got a smashed penny with the Aquarium logo and a shark on it, and a tiny dolphin I'm going to put in my car near my dashboard - to copy Caryn and her dinosaur and clown fish on her dash. They also had sea monkeys and stuffed animals and rubber animals and puzzles and balls and jewelry.

All in all it was definitely worth $8 and I would encourage everyone to visit it - and to see my slideshow of the photos we took a couple posts above this one.

First page of pride

2008-07-10T15:18:00.001-07:00

As I was wracking my brains for something to blog about, my coworker Sarah posted on her blog some of her fronts she's done for a publication called "Flipside" that we publish here at the Park Record every week.

I thought this was a great idea, but honestly, I've been playing catch up since I've been working here - churn out pages, no matter how they look. I haven't really put any creativity into any the process, mostly because I've had very little warning of what elements I'd have to work with. Which is understandable - when you're an editor here at The Park Record, you write most of your stories, along with edit them and decide where to put them on the page and about a million other things most editors delegate out to lesser peons down the food chain.

So, when the Scene editor Greg gave me about a week's heads-up on a layout he wanted to do for the front, I took off in a right-brained kind of way. It was of a Parachuter's Convention of sorts, where the first women parachuters met and talked about their experience. I got some super-cool old-timey photos from one lady and even a news article. Here's what came out:

I didn't get a lot of response here at work, but I think Greg liked it a lot, especially how it turned out in newsprint. The registration was actually a little off, which kind of made it look a little older than it was - perfect for the effect I was going for.

It's not amazing or my best or most creative work, but it's a starting point I hope to work off of to bigger and better things.

My new car

2008-06-25T11:22:00.001-07:00

(No, this is not an actual picture of my car, but it's pretty darn close. Isn't he cute?)

I know it's been awhile, but I'm finally posting something! :) It's been crazy at work and I work on a computer all day, so when I get home I don't feel like blogging. Or getting on Facebook. Or my email. Or pretty much just getting on a computer period.

Anyway, Brandon suggested I blog about the process of getting my new car, and that's what I've finally decided what to do. It was an interesting process - kind of my first step into the wide world of adulthood. It started with my dad getting tired of me driving his car up Parley's Canyon to work every day. What good car story doesn't start like that?

I mean, it was understandable - what with the wear and tear of Parley's every day slowly ripping away at his nice car. That was probably something my future car needed to take. :)

So I started looking at ksl.com for Corollas and Civics, just to see what kind of pool I had to work with and the price range of the cars. It was looking like $4-5,000ish for a decent-looking Honda or Toyota wasn't too bad. So I made up a list of those in my area and started calling. Quite a few of them told me they'd sold their cars already - a tragedy.

Then, my dad asked me to write up a list of those that were left and call them to see if I could test drive any that night. The only one who picked up was the owner of a blue 1997 Honda Civic who lived, surprise surprise, just across the city of West Jordan. We went there and mostly liked what we saw. "Don't give that fact away, though," my dad told me. The engine ran quietly, the body didn't look too bad, it was only at 101,000 miles and it was a bargain at the $3,000 asking price.

However, my dad said, "Don't put your eggs all in one basket. Let's test drive a few more cars."

So, I made a new list of the ones that had been added after a few days, and the only one that caught my eye was a silver 2001 Honda Civic for $4,600 - a pretty good deal, if it worked well enough. So, I worked out a test drive and a check-up by my grandpa in Provo, and headed down. We had to wait like half an hour for the girl who was selling it to get there and give us the keys and then we set out for my grandpa's house. He gave it a clean bill of health, but it felt like a rough ride to me, and not just because it was a stick and I was out of practice. Instead of buying it on the spot, we told her we'd think about it and went home.

On the way back, he asked me if I still had my heart set on the other Civic we'd driven- I told him yes, and he said we should get it checked it out by a mechanic and if all was good, to buy it if I wanted to. So that's what I did - I got it checked out by a mechanic, it looked good, I made a deal with the seller for $2,600 and was on my way. He's a beut - Becca bequeathed the name of Phil on him, and it's been a marvelous relationship ever since. Except when I had to pay sales tax at the DMV. Oh - and the fact that his stereo was stolen when the previous owner had it and I can't just replace it with another stereo - I have to get the plastic strip that was around it. :P

Me in three

2008-06-04T13:31:00.000-07:00

I've Been Tagged by Jen! How To Play This Game of Tag: Post these rules on your blog. List: 3 joys, 3 fears, 3 goals, 3 current obsessions/collections, 3 random surprising facts about yourself. Tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog!

JOYS:
Well thought-out presents (giving or receiving)
Kids- everything about them
My family

FEARS:
Never getting married.
Someone in my family dying.
Getting robbed in my house when I'm alone after I've just watched Law and Order or some similar show

GOALS:
Buy a car
Move out on my own
Get my master's degree

CURRENT OBSESSIONS/COLLECTIONS:
Page production- everything about graphic art (fonts, colors and logos especially)
Flip flops/shoes
Lost

3 RANDOM SURPRISING FACTS:
I don't have a gall bladder
I like my family and don't mind living with them too much
I love listening to people and what they want, remembering it, and then giving it to them for their birthday. I also love remembering people's birthdays.

...Becca, Anna, Katie McPhelpin, John Gagnon and Kylee...consider yourselves tagged.

I saw the president. I think.

2008-05-29T09:14:00.000-07:00

First day on the job at the Park Record, and what do you think happens? That's right, the President of the United States comes to visit Deer Valley and his entourage passes right through Park City, right along the street where I work. It was crazy-go-nuts.

This is when they blocked off the road in anticipation of his coming. No, really; I mean no one in, no one out. The cop you can kind of see to the right was nervously eying a guy on crutches, like he didn't really need them and would try to huck one at the limousine.

Here's the motorcycle cop escort. There were at least 14 of them.

I think that one rather far-off limousine with the police lights was the actual transport for the President, although the whole entourage was zipping through town at about 60 mph, so while that thought was going through my head, it was gone.

From what I could tell, my coworkers are all Bush haters and mocked him and the procession the entire time it was happening. I don't know if I'm going to fit in here...Not that I love Bush, but he is our President.

In other work news, it's the classic "How is this job going to work out?" phase of work where I don't know what people think of me and I actually kind of care. Can I joke with them? Should I tell them the actual title of the book I'm reading? (The Belgariad) Do they want help with their work or do they want to do it themselves at their own pace? Mostly, I'm just hoping they don't hate me as much as the last guy in my position. They talk about him all the time and it makes me hope I'm not the next one...

I got the job!

2008-05-19T20:11:00.000-07:00

Well, all, the waiting is finally over, 'cause I got the job at the Park Record! The hiring guy wrote me an email to ask if I wanted to accept the position and when I could start. I said, "Heck yes!" and "A week from Tuesday." Ah, getting my gall bladder out and not being able to start, say, tomorrow. Oh well. This way I can get some surgery done AND start a job soon after. The Lord, as always, knew what I needed.

A conversation of an interview

2008-05-15T10:30:00.000-07:00

Well, I've done it; after waiting and fretting over the interview at the Park Record, it finally came and it was great.

I got a little lost right at the exit, but then got on the right track and got there 15 minutes early, although it still took me about an hour to get there. I checked in with the secretary and sat back to wait with a copy of the Record they had laying on a bookshelf. It definitely had good design for such a small paper.

Then the interviewer came in and we were ready to go. We went to the conference room and he basically told me about the job. I felt like it was a conversation rather than an interview, which was marvelous. It was shop talk between two people in the newspaper industry. He told me they were a bi-weekly, what their production cycle was, that they had corporate backing from the company who owned the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News, and a lot of other things I don't remember now.

The best thing about this guy is that he was genuine: when he asked me if I had any questions, I didn't feel like it was a test I might fail. I felt he was really asking me if I had questions -- what a revelation! He looked at my portfolio and gave me feedback on it, which was also amazing. He liked my temple layout. I felt I would like working in the environment he set up.

He said he was interviewing another person for sure and possibly another person after that, but he needed to make his decision by the end of the month, and he'd let me know in the next week or two. All in all, I feel good about it and it was the most easy-going interview I've ever been in, which was the best part.

The State Republican Convention

2008-05-12T11:49:00.000-07:00

This column could possibly be appearing in the Scroll, this coming issue (Tuesday, May 13).

Reminiscent of the atmosphere of a high school assembly, except a little louder, the Utah Republican Convention convened Sat., May 10 at 10 a.m.

This was not my introduction to the 2008 race, since I’d attended a lunch hosted by Chris Cannon with my dad -- who’s a state delegate and incredibly involved. He knew I’d just graduated with a degree in Communication and my emphasis in journalism. Oh, and that I’m insatiably curious, especially about how government runs.

It was a fascinating experience. The UVSC McKay Events Center was decked out in an advertiser’s dream: signs, booths and even golf carts bore marks of candidates. I wondered if the overwhelming barrage of names truly affected voters; I was of the opinion that it didn’t, but I’ll tell you what did affect them: the speeches of various candidates.

When talking to a neighbor and fellow delegate, we discussed the fact that each candidate for Congress had some sort of flaw that made them unappealing. But how do you decide which flaw is the worst? The neighbor had decided to keep his judgment on hold until the speeches, to see what they had to say, and vote based on the strength of their speaking.

The first couple of speeches by candidates for Congress were interesting; one focused on the fact that the United States was becoming the North American Union, with no borders between Canada or Mexico. Another talked of a Peacemaker Bill that didn’t make any sense. It kind of made me feel good to see that even if you’re a bit of a crazy, you can still run for office and get a forum for your ideas. The Convention is set up to weed those people out, but at least they get a chance to speak at all. My dad told me to run for the Senate you go down to a courthouse, fill out some paperwork and pay $50.

The other couple of speeches were by those who were the serious contenders for Congress: David Leavitt, Jason Chaffetz and Chris Cannon. In my mind, there was a clear winner if an award for the best speech could be given: Jason Chaffetz addressed issues, told people he wouldn‘t overspend, like he did with his campaign, and was overall the best speaker of the three.

I was amazed at the opposition against Chris Cannon -- people started booing when he was announced and continued to boo every chance they got. It reminded me of elementary school and made me wonder how people could be so disrespectful. Even if I didn’t agree with what someone was saying, I would never boo someone.

How old was this assembly anyway? Near the end of the day, when it had been going on seven hours, it became apparent that everyone had the attention span of 4-year-olds and I thought pitchforks and torches were going to come out if they were made to wait any longer.

The race was close against Chaffetz and Cannon; so much so that a third round of voting needed to take place to see if there would be a state Republican primary. My dad stayed to the last round, casting his vote and being one to decide if there would be a primary election between the two, which ended up being the case. If a candidate wins 60 percent of the vote, there isn’t a primary. Chaffetz won 59 percent of the vote, helping Cannon squeak by to a primary.

Through it all, I was wondering how to know what to believe what these people were telling me. Will they do what they say? Should we give someone a chance who has never been to Congress or give someone who has experience another four years in office to possibly use their seniority as a plus? I guess once they find out how to tell if people mean what they’re saying, it will be the millennium -- until that point, it’s up to us to figure it out. So go out and vote!

Another possibility

2008-05-09T14:56:00.000-07:00

Well, as you all know, I've been hunting (and somewhat fishing) around for a job these past few weeks, and I think I've hit upon a keeper.

When I was looking through Craig's List for job ideas, I came upon a really old one from March that was just about perfect for what I want to do: page layout and design at the Park City Record.

I didn't really have a hope the job was still available, but having a feeling I should apply, I faxed my cover letter and resume to them all the same.

It had been a week since that point, and I decided to check back up with them about the job, just in case, yesterday afternoon, so I sent an email to the production department and got one back today.

The guy said there had been a hiring freeze shortly after he made that ad, and that he'd received my cover letter and resume, but now there wasn't, and a job came up just yesterday that he'd like to talk to me about! I haven't heard back from him yet, but when I do, I'll let y'all know. :)

I didn't get it

2008-04-29T11:00:00.000-07:00

Well, after waiting for a couple of days, I got an email from Cedar Fort. Here is most of it:

"Amy,

This is the only email address I found for you, I hope it works.

We want to thank you so much for your time and consideration in applying for
the Graphic Designer position at Cedar Fort. It is people of your quality
abilities who assist us in making Cedar Fort such a valuable asset to our
community.

We have decided on another individual to fill this immediate position, but
will keep your resume on file for any future openings.

Thank you again and best wishes on completing your career goals."

Then it had his name signed at the bottom. So, one place down, 100 million to go.

My interview

2008-04-25T16:14:00.000-07:00

Well, I went to my interview at Cedar Fort Inc., and honestly I don't know how I did. I feel like I did well with asking questions and putting myself in a positive light, but I don't know.

The interviewer did bring up my blog, which was kind of a surprise. I mean, I don't think there's anything on here I'm ashamed of, but it was kind of a surprise anyway. I mean, I don't have it listed on my resume and it didn't come up when I googled my name, so that must've taken some sort of digging.

So, he brought up my blog but didn't say anything about it, bad or good.

Then he looked at my portfolio and didn't say anything about it, bad or good.

We also talked about my experience and he didn't say anything about it, bad or good.

As an interviewer, I guess you'd kind of want to keep your feelings of the interviewee to yourself, but usually I can still gauge how they feel about me, but not this time.

I find out in a couple of days how I did and I'll let you all know, too, since right now I have no idea how I did.

Something turned up

2008-04-23T12:22:00.001-07:00

Well, it's finally come to pass.

After two-ish weeks of waiting, I've finally got an interview with a company I found, thanks to Anna Bergevin, on the BYU alumni site. I hope they think of me as an alumnus of their school, considering I'm an alumnus of a sister school. I'm sure they're okay with it.

Anyway, it's with a company called Cedar Fort Inc., that publishes LDS books! Hoo hoo! I would be designing advertisements, bookmarks and book covers. Also, I just reread their job specifics and I'm pretty qualified. At least, in my mind. :) Proficient in InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop. I'm not perfect in them, but I've had advanced experience in all three.

So, the interview is tomorrow at 10:30 and I'll let you all know how that goes. In the meantime, I'm researching the company like mad and trying to quell my pre-interview jitters.

On the job hunt

2008-04-21T09:47:00.001-07:00

In a blink of an eye I was graduated and home in good ol' West Jordan, leaving me to wonder "What's next?"

As always in the summer, I started on the job hunt, but something was a bit different this time: I had a degree and a desire to not settle for anything less than what I wanted in a job.

I started pulling up websites with job offers for journalists and graphic designers, wishing I had put a little more effort into taking classes for graphic design majors -- like typography -- or at least had sat down with a designer at the Scroll to teach me some of their secrets to good design.

Sure, I'm pretty good at the basic ideas of design, especially for page design, but I just realized I wanted to know more about the design world -- but, alas, it's a little too late.

Other realizations I had revolved around my choice of major, and therefore my choice of career. Roughly 100 million advertisements in the classifieds were for engineers or nurses. "Shoot," I thought to myself, "too bad I'm not good at that one science thing." Then there were the 100 million other computer/website design jobs. "Crap. I should have learned HTML."

Then again, I don't like science or computers, and something could turn up in page design, right? Stay tuned for the answer.

We're basically all just children

2008-04-04T14:18:00.000-07:00

Oh Senior Seminar.

Oh last day of Senior Seminar.

Oh getting to last day of Senior Seminar.

And then the heavens opened and the people rejoiced.

It started out like pretty much any other Senior Seminar day, with lots of senioritis and presentations about what people have done wrong in their lives and what they can do to make it right. We got together in groups and were trying to decide whether or not to pull Martha Stewart's line while she was in prison, and what to do about the whole prison thing.

Here's what was on the line: a mystery box marked with a giant question mark.

We decided that we wouldn't pull the items and we'd also do a countdown that coordinated with her freedom from prison, which gave us a tie for the win with another group.

Which meant it came down to a cupcake eat-off. We chose Kirk to do the honors and watched in semi-horror as he downed a Better-Than-(insert your favorite word here) Cupcake, with Skor chips and whipped cream and chocolate cake and caramel. He stopped breathing for a second, I think, but eventually got it down amidst cheers from us -- the curious members of group 2.

We opened the box that, unbeknownst to us, held our salvation.

There it was: dollar store Play Dough in four different colors. I chose red and blue, and was promptly entertained for the rest of the class period making cigarettes (for another group presentation), mountains and little men. Oh, and this little Christmas tree at the top of this post. I was not exempt in my joy; my other group members made cubes, animals and imprints of different objects around them.

This brought me to the realization that everyone is just a kid at heart -- even seniors who are graduating and going out into the world.

It redeemed my thought of humankind and made me want to give the world a can of Play Dough -- not a Coke.

Academics: write coherently

2008-03-13T15:31:00.000-07:00

I love my Religion and Society class. A lot. One of the only things I have to complain about is some of the readings I have to do. Peter Berger, I'm talking to you. I hate the way you write and others like you. Do you write to be understood? No. I can only think that you're hoping you'll only be understood by the upper crust of academia in the religious sociological world, and not the average Joe, who almost has a Bachelor's degree in communication. What it looks like to me is that you're striving to be elitist to stroke your own ego and have other academics tell you how great you are. It drives me crazy. When you're trying to get your ideas out into the world, keep them coherent so the average person of the world can read them without wanting to cry and throw up simultaneously.

"Let's use 100 obscure words where 10 well-understood ones will do," they say, as they type away, frequently glancing at their Thesaurus.

I mean, I'm surprised they use such easy-to-use words as "the" and "an." Probably because there aren't really any substitutes for those words. But really, there shouldn't be substitutes for other words, either. When my professor translates what he meant to say there's a general feeling of "Oh! That's what he's saying -- or attempting to say," throughout the class. That, and the thought goes out, "Then why didn't he just say it that way?"

Now, I understand that there are some words or ideas that you can't just dumb down or simplify, mainly for the reason that there aren't other words that will sufficiently take their place. But take, for example, Stark and Finke, who wrote a marvelous book that I actually understand! Today my professor told me why I understand them so much better than Berger when, essentially, they're all saying the same thing. Stark was a journalist at one time. We speak soul to soul -- I swear. He and Finke are sometimes long-winded, but for the most part he's clear and concise, even with ideas that Berger took 48 pages to expell.

In the spirit of such Stark-ness, I will end this post now.

Here it is: my five minutes of fame

2008-03-02T21:21:00.000-08:00

Well, here is what everyone has been waiting for: the critical review of my Broadway Revue moment in the spotlight. Here it is, so you can decide for yourself how I did. The crowd was really responsive and felt full of friends, as the cat calls show. :) I got a little breathy on the high notes, but I belted the highest I ever have, which was cool, and I got some audience response at all the right times, which was also cool.

I'm not sure this video upload is working, so here's a link to it on my Facebook account while I figure out how to do it on here.

Something that never fails

2008-02-29T15:22:00.000-08:00

I was thinking about what I could blog about today, and although I'm going to blog about my Broadway experience tonight, I decided a much-needed break was in order. I thought, "What gives me a much-needed break?"

I could only think of one word. Well, actually like two words, if ".com" is a word. Or maybe three, with the dot? Okay, well, I thought of one concept: www.homestarrunner.com.

It's on my list of Web sites I visit daily, along with my email and bank accounts. I can count on something new being there weekly, not counting their sketchbook, fan and quote stuff. If I've had a hard day, nothing can lift my spirits like browsing through my favorite toons or hitting the "random" button and having the site pick a classic StrongBad email.

Everyone in the office knows about my addiction and merely smiles indulgently when they hear me laughing and look over to see what struck me as hilarious, seeing the telltale signs of FreeCountry, USA. I even talk in Teen Girl Squad voices with one of my coworkers — which, by the way, is exhausting.

I love wearing their merchandise, too. There's nothing quite like walking around with "Rock, rock on" on your back, and people yelling from across the quad, "Awesome shirt! I love homestarrunner!" Or getting a coupon for their merchandise for your birthday — it was one of the best birthdays I've ever had.

What makes people like the Brothers Chaps? Sometimes I wish I could be half as creative as they are — I could definitely use the talent. Although, I'm sure it gets exhausting, cranking out new stuff every week. I wonder if they live on Mountain Dew, or just pure adrenaline from the rush of creating things and seeing it in color, playing back to them.

I guess it was worth a lot, 'cause I got in!

2008-02-23T22:58:00.001-08:00

And yay, verily, Amy's audition for Broadway Revue was not in vain, for she got in! And there was much rejoicing. And yay, she did invite all who could to come and watch the performance and she will probably post pictures and video as soon as the event happens.

My foray into Broadway

2008-02-22T14:13:00.000-08:00

Photo by Steven Hopkins
Yeah, yeah, I know I've used the word "foray" a lot lately in my posts, but it just works so well rhyming with Broadway that I had to use it again.

Anyway, I don't know how many of you I had told about this beforehand, but I auditioned for Broadway Revue (yes, that is the way they spell it) this past Thursday. I told myself before the semester began that I would, so I did. It's basically a show of people singing and dancing to Broadway songs -- go figure. I decided on the song "Nothing" from the musical A Chorus Line.

It was an interesting route getting there, though, just because I realized I needed either an accompanist or a minus track to sing along to during auditions. That was Tuesday when I realized this, so I texted my sister-in-law Mandi and asked her if they provided accompanists or what I could do to audition, since she'd been in the show before- she's amazing that way. :)

She told me I'd probably need to provide either, and I was semi-panicking. I didn't really know anyone who had time to practice the song in two days or could pick up music and play it really well, and my hopes began failing me. Then I asked if I could somehow buy/make a minus track, and Mandi graciously told me, with two day's notice, that she would. Bless her soul. She says it was so she could play with her new music software, Finale, but I just think that was an excuse to not make me feel bad. :)

So, she finished it up the next day, and I had a good half of a day or so to practice with the track and polish my singing and acting. I performed for my roommates the night before, who at least acted amused. Thanks guys.

I checked the Web site to see if I just had to show up at 4 to audition, or if I had to do anything else. It said to sign up at the MC Info Desk, so I dutifully went there that morning and looked at the sheet, which basically said I needed to send my lyrics the day before and had a sign up sheet with time slots. I shrugged my shoulders, signed up anyway, and ran to my next class.

I sent the lyrics, figuring that I would still be okay, and looked at this kind of disclosure they wanted me to sign. "Blah, blah, blah...BYU-Idaho appropriate...Blah blah blah...only students can perform...blah blah blah...you can't change the lyrics on a cover song. Wait a second." I had changed three of the words in my song, all three being expletives. I texted Mandi in a panic, wondering if my song was a cover song. She called me back and told me she was pretty sure it wasn't, but I was still a bit wary.

I showed up pretty early for my audition, just because of where I was situated and what I had to do that day, and they didn't start admitting people until 15 minutes after they said they would start, which was interesting. But I just went up to sign in a bit later than I would've, and the girl asked me which lyrics I had changed.

I was like, "That word right there," pointing to the word "nonsense."

"What was the word before?" she asked.

I was almost sorely tempted to blurt it out, but knowing it probably wouldn't win me any points with the Talent Board, I merely said, "A swear word," like a five-year-old would. I don't know why I didn't use the word "expletive," but I was already nervous they wouldn't accept my audition because I'd changed the words. She merely nodded and approved my edits.

With my knees shaking, I entered the MC Little Theater, where five sets of eyes were waiting to take my act in. I introduced myself, spelled my name, and promptly starting switching things around on stage. I took the mic off the stand, pulled a piano bench up to my space and nodded to the guy running the CD player to mash go.

For the most part, I think it went well. I was pretty nervous, but only shook a little when I switched to my head voice and remembered everything I needed to say and sing. Also, they laughed during an appropriate part of my performance, which was encouraging. It's a funny piece, so laughing is a good thing.

After I was finished, I used my wobbly knees to walk out of there and said goodbye to everyone. One of the judges went to go get some food somewhere else in the MC just as I was leaving and told me "You're really good," for whatever that's worth.

I find out if I made the show tomorrow, so I guess we'll see what it was worth.

A vocal minority

2008-02-13T18:53:00.001-08:00

In my Money Management class, I have lots of epiphanies. My latest one came about when the class was split into married people and single people in order for the married people to give a kind of "What I Wish I Would've Known" thing about money before they were married.

I thought to myself, before we split up, "I am so in the single minority in this class. It's going to be the married people and me."

That's not quite what happened, however.

I was surprised to find, as we turned our desks toward each other, that the single people occupied more than half of the seats in the room! But, as we did this little exercise, I realized that the people who commented the most were in the married minority, which led me to believe that there were a lot of married people in the class.

This semi-bothered me and made me wonder about why it seems that those who are married are the most vocal in class.

I've got a couple of theories:

1. Only people who are vocal get married.

2. Married people have twice as many life stories to share.

3. When they get married, they become more interested in getting involved in class and getting involved in their education.

4. Some married people think that they because they're married, they suddenly have important things/advice to say to those poor "unmarrieds". ;)

Whatever the reason, I say single people to speak out! Become heard! I know I'm trying to.

Things I Love

2008-01-31T15:38:00.000-08:00

So I've been tagged by Anna Bergevin (spelling? Sorry if I'm wrong) to write about this, so here are three things I love more than my family, roommates, children, or soda. I don't know how family and children are different, but they are. It's hard when you're not married and you don't have the choice of husband, so you have to fill that spot with something similar...;)

1) Lost parties with my family. Actually, any parties with my family. I know it kinda counts as being my family, but they make me happy, especially when we can all get together and go to San Francisco or Denver. I'd rather hang with my fam than anyone else.

2) Making people laugh. I love coming up with things on the fly and hearing genuine laughter afterward. This happens a lot when Becca and I go off on something random. I love times with her, too, a lot.

3) When teachers validate my life by complimenting me. I'm going to be honest, sometimes it's just not enough to do assignments just for the sake of knowledge. I love every once in awhile to have a "gold star" moment.

I'm tagging Becca, Brandon and Katie McPhelpen to do the same thing I just did.

Senior Seminar: senioritis in an enclosed space

2008-01-31T15:05:00.000-08:00

One of the requirements of my major is a class called Senior Seminar, which you must take as a senior, obviously. I don't know if the heads of the department really thought this through before putting this class into play. A bunch of seniors, either a semester or two semesters from graduating...all in class together...early in the morning...

The best part of the whole thing is the fact that we're in groups and supposed to do group things from time to time. Before last night, I have never been in a group where it was blatantly stated that they didn't want to be there and didn't care about the assignment. I've been in groups where the underlying tone was that fact, but I've never had it openly said. Until last night.

Honestly, before our little rendevouz, I had basically wiled the day away with a very long nap and half an assignment. I was still in that mood when it was expressed that no one else really cared, making my mood even worse. It was like an awful cycle of senioritis going round and round in that little newsroom.

I had written partial answers to all five questions we were supposed to answer. We're talking five questions here, people. Five, concise, sucinct, answers -- maybe a paragraph long at most. Everyone was amazed at my feat of academia. Have we really degenerated to things as sad as this when we become seniors? I haven't. Yet.

My profession is going up in flames

2008-01-22T20:59:00.000-08:00

Reading the New York Times headlines today was definitely an interesting experience. There it was in the Media and Advertising section: "Editor Fires Parting Shot at His Chain," speaking of the Los Angeles Times editor James O'Shea who got fired because he refused to make job cuts the parent company,the Tribune Company, was demanding.

This has been a startlingly growing trend in the business in the past few years, especially since circulation, readership and advertising have taken a dip and profit margins have gone from 20% to 15% or less. The thing is, a 3% profit margin is amazing, but with huge parent companies investing stock who know nothing but the concept of more, it's too much of a deficit and they've started cutting jobs to make up the loss.

The ironic thing is, the more you cut jobs, the harder it is to make lots of good content for people to read, and the less people read it, which brings advertising revenue down even further. I don't know what the solution is, but I know that large amounts of job cuts will probably come back to haunt big conglomerates in the end.

This is the field I have chosen to go into. I'm sure I'll be fine, but sometimes it's a bit daunting to see what I'm up against: lots of big companies who only know numbers and profit margins, rather than content, ruling the newsroom.

Watching the Comic Frenzy mock show — definitely a foray

2008-01-19T10:47:00.000-08:00

So, I checked my name on the list of who made it into the mock show, so the people in Comic Frenzy could make one last decision on who made Comic Frenzy. Aaaand...drum roll, please...

I didn't make it. No big surprise, really. But all the people on the list were people I'd enjoyed watching and playing with during tryouts, so I made up my mind to go to the mock show anyway.

It was hilarious. Almost as good as a normal Comic Frenzy show, although a little unorthodox. By the end, I pretty much had decided who "fit the bill" and who probably wouldn't make it. But that didn't mean it wasn't an awesome time all around.

Especially 'cause the people in Comic Frenzy got to watch and make suggestions, which they thoroughly enjoyed, I'm sure. One was a movie called "Fleece Go" and ended up being about knitted fleece that a grandma made in the attic in 90 degree temperatures. Oh, and goat milk. I have no idea — don't ask me.

Who ended up getting in the show? Three people: Steven Hopkins, a guy we called Old Davey, and Lizanne something or other. I know the first and last name of the first guy 'cause he's a photographer for Scroll and we put their whole names in photo bylines. What a small, small campus, eh? And a funny, funny Comic Frenzy that I'm anticipating this semester. Hope they don't let me down. :)

Day numba two in my foray into the Frenzy

2008-01-16T21:37:00.000-08:00

This is going to be a short, somewhat boring post because my second day of tryouts for Comic Frenzy was basically the same as the first day.

Oh, except I did worse. Yet, I had a lot of fun with it. How does that one work? I dunno, but I'm grateful because it means I don't feel like I wasted my time for two hours today.

I was tired yet again, and still sick, and honestly, I didn't really get into it very much. I had maybe one or two funny things here and there, but overall I was just kinda hanging in there.

Oh, and watching all the other hilarious people display their talents, especially people I've known for a little while. I loved it when the people in Comic Frenzy laughed out loud while trying to contain the facade of being the "cool" ones -- that was probably my favorite part. That and laughing so hard it hurt.

From here, there's a mock show of five or six people tomorrow at six, and they're releasing the list for the mock show at 11 tonight at the latest, but I'm just going to go check it when I have a dance class in that building. Don't really have any hopes of even making the mock show, but I'm probably going to go anyway because I already feel a connection with the people I tried out with -- and they're hilarious!

My first day of foray into the Frenzy

2008-01-15T20:24:00.000-08:00

I promised to write about my tryouts for Comic Frenzy, and so here I am.

First off, I was exhausted and had a pile of things to do before going to bed tonight, so I was tempted to just skip the whole thing. Then I remembered the promise to myself and to all you people, and I walked right into that there Kirkham building and wrote my name down on a piece of paper and a name tag.

It was an interesting crowd. You know how you have a certain idea of what kind of people are funny in your mind? Almost none of the people I looked around at fit the bill -- and then we started playing.

We warmed up our brains a little and then split up into two groups, one to work on music and wit, and one to work on character and scenes. I worked in the music and wit group first.

I thought that one of my strengths would probably be the musical stuff, so I kinda had a chance to see just what kind of stuff I could do. In one of the games my problem was that I was bald, and I couldn't think of anything that rhymed with bald. So, I made up an animal called a "fald". Yes indeed I did. I waited like 30-40 seconds to come up with "fald". Oh well. At least I stayed in the 7-5-7-5 pattern. That was a plus.

Then we played a game where we each had a part of the song to write, which was interesting. We started with tennis, and somehow polar bears got in there and never were resolved. I got to sing, "It's all about the skirt" extremely high during the chorus. That was fun.

We had about 15 minutes to do wit/pun stuff, wherein I learned that I have none of either. Basically they're popout games where an idea is presented and if you have one you step forward. I thought of a couple for the "Waiter there's a _____ in my soup," but puns aren't my thing really. I also thought of a couple for the movie blooper game, which was fun. "I will at a time come back to this present place" for Terminator. Overall not that impressive.

Then we went upstairs to do character and scene stuff. We did scenes where the first person in the scene established a person and the second person established the where. It was pretty fun, although there were times when I didn't know if I just thought I was funny or if everyone else did, too.

That was the bottom line of the tryouts, actually. I had some moments, but for the most part I was with some really amazing people who could develop characters and keep something funny going for as long as it was necessary. I just don't think I have that extra oomph to make myself noticeable and wanted. Oh well.

I did have an okay character moment, actually. In a character-sketch type thing, I decided to be one of those people who sings all the time and tries to match pitch to voice, and I said I had perfect pitch in seven countries. And I didn't laugh afterward, either! I'm still amazed at myself. :)

I promised Becca I'd see it through to the end, so I'm going tomorrow, too, to day two of tryouts. Let you know how that one goes.

Inadequecies on the first day

2008-01-09T16:49:00.000-08:00

I never thought that going to two classes on the first day of my last semester would make me feel so inadequate, but here I am wondering what I'm doing and going to do with my life.

I walked in late to my first class, Money Management, and one of the assignments was to write down my revenue and expenses for the month of January. I realized pretty quickly that until January 21st, I have about $6 to my name, which counts pretty much everything, which was a bit embarrassing. Whoops. Good thing I'm taking the class, eh?

Then I set off to Human Relations and Leadership, a class for my minor, and on the syllabus there was an assignment to write a five year goal. It was then that I wished I was a sophomore or junior because then I'd at least have two or three years taken up with, "Finish college." I'm finishing my bachelor's in April, what I consider, for now, "finishing college", and it hit home just how much I have no idea what I'm doing afterward -- not in the first year, much less the fifth.

I'm sure most people have eventual plans in the back of their minds. Things such as, "Write a book" or "start a garden" or "climb up the career ladder and eventually own my own business or become CEO" but I don't have anything like that right now. I have the ambition of a fruit fly. Possibly less.

I DO have a goal to get a career, but I don't really want to move up in it. I'm going to be one of those people that people talk about at the water cooler. A possible conversation about me follows:

"So, how long has Barrus been here?" --random ambition-full cub reporter who wants to move to a big town as soon as they've paid their dues.
"It's a pretty small town and small town newspaper. I'm surprised it's kept her happy. I mean, I guess a population of 3,000 is big enough to keep some reporters occupied, but she's been here 50 years. What else is there for her to do?" --Owner of said paper who has worked less time at the paper than I have.
(Enter Amy)
"Oh, hi Amy." --Cub reporter and Owner
"Hi guys. Have you heard about that fourteen-year-old stealing from the lemonade stand her younger sister started? Should be pretty hot stuff." --Me
(Exit Amy)
"See what I mean?" --Owner
"Wow--that's sad." --Cub reporter

I'm sure I have SOME ambition. Somewhere. Let you know if I find it.

Feeling of triumph

2008-01-07T20:50:00.000-08:00

I just finished sending my first issue of the paper for this semester -- all with a staff of about eight or so. It was an incredibly interesting experience.

As managing editor, I'm in charge of the front page design and all other page design in the newspaper. I thought it would be a daunting task, and to an extent it was, but if you learn something as a journalist it's that deadlines are king -- when it becomes deadline whatever you have is good enough. That's a plus when you have 24 pages, four days to finish them and eight staffers to do it all- including yourself.

Designing the front page was a bit nerve-wracking, but with a little help from the newspaper adviser and the fact that I got tired of it, I sent it off without too much fuss. Everyone I talked to who had been managing editor before said you got used to it after a couple of issues, but I'm used to it now, I guess.

I wasn't stressed very much over anything, in fact. Even at the very end I wasn't pulling my hair as much as I thought I would. We got the paper sent by 5:41 p.m., which is the earliest it's ever been sent since our newspaper has gone to tabloid format. I'm still feeling pretty good about that five hours later.

So, what does that mean? Am I far too laid back for my own good? Do I need to stress a little more? Or should I just keep taking life and the paper with a cool, calm composure?

For now, I think I'll stick with calm. Worrying has never gotten much of anything done, in my experience.

Dave Barry is my hero

2007-12-31T12:30:00.000-08:00

I picked up the paper today, Deseret Morning News for those who want to know, and there it was. The reason why I live through the year: Dave Barry's Year in Review 2007.

Dave Barry is one of those writers who amazes me because he makes fun of everyone equally: world leaders, politicians of either party, and especially celebrities. I read him faithfully, which isn't hard to do these days because he's been on sabbatical for the past three years so all he's come out with is his Year in Review and his Gift Guide.

But even before his sabbatical I was reading every column and book he wrote, amazed at his audacity as a writer to not only make fun of everyone, but to bring relationships into perspective, too. One of his books called Dave Barry's The Complete Guide to Guys, has a quote I will never forget.

“A guy in a relationship is like an ant standing on top of a truck tire. The ant is aware – on a very basic level – that something large is there, but he cannot even dimly comprehend what this thing is, or the nature of his involvement with it. And if the truck starts moving, and the tire starts to roll, the ant will sense that something important is happening, but right up until he rolls around to the bottom and is squashed into a small black blot, the only distinct thought that will form in his tiny brain will be, and I quote, ‘Huh?’…

Another thing I like about Dave Barry is the fact that he pays attention to world events and connects things together in a hilarious way. Take, for example, a line in his Year in Review. "In entertainment news, author J.K. Rowling surprises fans of the "Harry Potter" series when she reveals that Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts School, was also, secretly, a U.S. senator from Idaho."

Pop in some great band names, such as The Phlegmtones, and the fact that Alberto Gonzales' name can be rearranged to form "Re-Label Zoo Gnats" and "Gala Lobster Zone," and you've got one heck of a great writer.

Thank you Dave Barry for making my year. I hope someday I can make fun of people equally and be a great writer like you.

Agatha Christie- how does she do it?

2007-12-28T11:26:00.000-08:00

My sister Becca got me addicted to Agatha Christie over the summer, while she was getting herself addicted. Ever since then, I've been reading about Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot basically nonstop. My Aunt Karen added to the joy of Christmas reading by lending Becca about 25 of her books.

This lady astounds me every time I pick up a new book, every time I turn a page. Even though I should be pretty wise to mystery books by now, what with my extensive Sherlock Holmes and Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew readings, she throws me for loops like you wouldn't believe. I should be wise just to her writing now, too, but I'm sure not.

My triumph is that I made a correct guess once about who the killer was--I was incredibly stoked and almost woke up Becca to tell her, but decided against it. She's now a Christie connoisseur, and was excited for me, but also said she'd gotten four right in her 35-some-odd books she's read.

Not only has Christie written mystery books, she also did a book of plays with stage directions and everything. It made me tempted to try my hand at them. I'll let you know if I ever do so.

The sad, sad tale of Snow Elphaba

2007-12-27T22:43:00.000-08:00

So, I promised to upload a photo of Snow Elphaba, but alas, I didn't get to her before her head and arm fell off and my brothers finished the job by tackling her to the ground. Oh, and then it snowed. It snowed throughout the time, actually. Sorry those of you who were expecting a cool picture. All I have to give you is a rather sad tale.

Snow sculpting

2007-12-21T12:54:00.000-08:00

So, Becca and I decided to make a Snow Elphaba, from the musical Wicked, last night when we were contemplating what she was going to do with her break, and she said she wanted to do a snow sculpture. I've always wanted to do something with snow and food coloring in a spray bottle, so I suggested Elphaba.

Since it snowed quite a lot over night and that evening, we had quite a lot to work with when we woke up. Except that it was mostly powder; not the most sculpture-friendly material. We tried to start out with a snowman shape, but after the ball wouldn't get any bigger, and it was packing the snow down, we just built on it as it was already by picking up big handfuls of snow and packing it on the ball.

That gave us kind of a lumpy shape to start with, but we figured we could just shave it all away. Snow sculpting is waaaay harder than we first imagined, especially when the tool is a butter knife. Needless to say, she's a bit uneven all around, but we finished her, and from far away with a witch hat, she doesn't look half bad. :)

We haven't finished her, but I'll be sure to post a picture once we're done. She just needs coloring and some hair...

Takin' a walk

2007-12-19T21:38:00.000-08:00

So, after being confined to the house for about four days, I finally decided it was time to take a walk. And although I had many choices available to stroll by, especially since the Jordan River Parkway is about fifteen minutes away, I decided to combine my shopping and exercise, and walk to the good ol' Dollar Store. Whoever thought Dollar Stores up deserves a star. Maybe two.

What's funny about my exercise when I'm home for breaks is that it's nonexistent, and yet at school I get it in at least three times a week, besides walking to class. In Rexburg, Idaho. What else is funny is that Brandon gets more exercise when he comes home. Lots of brothers to wrestle and play basketball with, I guess. So I've decided to become more like Brandon, although not disgrace myself in front of my adolescent brothers. They are mostly taller than me and stuff me with ease, although they usually try to be nice at first and pretend that I'm holding my own.

Anyway, I headed out in the beautiful temperature of 44 degrees, rather unheard of in Rexburg, and actually took off my coat for most of the walk. I'm sure the people driving by were like, "Homeless or just a crazy?" Ah, well.

Something else that's crazy is how many things you can be grateful for if you start looking around. All those people driving by made a wind of some sort, and although it wasn't the natural sort of wind one gets from a lake or the ocean or anything, it was still pretty cool- especially when a semi drove by. The pavement and asphalt weren't the most beautiful things to look at, but at least they didn't have ice on them. The fact that I have legs is something to be excited about, and the fact that I can use them is even more marvelous.

So, if "upon life's billows you are tempest-tossed," or even if you're sailing calm seas, take time to look around and be grateful. It's well worth the glance.

Being a mom

2007-12-18T20:59:00.000-08:00

Whenever I come home for breaks and such, my mom's favorite thing to capitalize on is the fact that she has a babysitter at home -- especially when it's Christmas. Not that I blame her, because she has nine kids to shop for, not counting in-laws and teachers and neighbors and her parents. Oh, and she's was in Hawaii last week with my dad.

So, mostly for the Hawaii reason, she asked me to take Micah to Play Group. Play Group is a bunch of moms from the ward who bring their kids to play with each other while they chat it up. Granted, I'm just the older sister of my brother, but sometimes I feel like I'm one of the moms. I know I'm too young, and not even married, but I have had lots of younger siblings to babysit and play with while I was growing up, and even when I went away to college. Case in point: I'm 21 and my youngest brother is four.

I mean, I was sitting there chatting it up with all the moms, and they talked to me about their different kids' quirks, and I remembered my little brother Seth's fascination with pots and pans. One mom commented that her baby was sedate and I remembered Seth and Josh and Jonathan and Micah -- none of whom were really quiet. Ever. But I loved/love them anyway.

I worry about my siblings, I pick them up and drop them off for things, I attend their recitals and concerts. Those are all things I could really do as a good sister, but for some reason, after Play Group this morning, it just isn't the same...

Tribute to Scrollies

2007-12-12T18:10:00.000-08:00

It's finally happened; what I've been dreading all semester. Scroll is finally over and a ton of my friends are leaving me. A ton already have, but now even more are going to be gone. A lot of times this semester, especially when they were choosing leadership, it occurred to me just how many of my friends I started out with on Scroll are moving on or spreading around the world.

So, I decided to give a tribute of good times to them all, one by one.

Amber Meyers- she was my inspiration to join Scroll in the first place, and she's provided so much laughter since. I love hearing her stories about her classes she's already taught and things that went on the Financial Aid office. Somehow, she'd always know when something was going on at BYU-Idaho. I'll never forget that look she got when she had a story idea-- and how she looked all warm and cozy in her stolen airplane blanket. She's also the person who got me hooked on Lost. So, thanks to my Lost dealer, Amber.

Ben Caballero- I got to know Ben when he was one of the News assistant editors, and my love for him has grown since then. I loved his Q&As he did this semester, ranging from Santa Clause to the new city council member who was a student. He and I both went for the Des News internship and he got it, but he never was egotistical about the fact. In fact, he never had a big head about much of anything. Thanks for the humility and good times, Ben. He also made fun of me like no other all the time, but I took it in stride and knew it was his way of showing his love for me. :)

Jade Swartzberg- our very own South African Canadian Jew- I loved her for all the times she would talk about her heritage. I also loved it when she would tell me about Survivor or the Amazing Race, 'cause heaven knows I didn't keep up on it. She was always hilarious, ready and waiting for a witty comment to throw in Editor's Meeting or during production. She also was supremely calm and never seemed to get ruffled about anything, which helped my stress levels. :)

Keli Glade- I can't believe she's going on a mission, but she'll basically rock on it! She was always so happy in the office, ready to give me the latest youtube video she'd found or comment about Ben Affleck's hair in his latest movie. She had some of the best columns I've ever seen, and she always had her hair done so cutely! I'm gonna miss her in A&E.

Allison Walker Harris- I got to know Allison really well when we were both campus assistant editors with Autumn Hill our sophomore fall semester. She was rather freaked out, 'cause she'd only had like a semester of Scroll, but she did great at learning it quickly. I roomed with Allison for a good year and really got to know her personality even more. She's a stalwart, hard-working, hilarious person. She would always be the first one to shoot the breeze with me in the office, which was fun. Especially her stories of her husband, Warren. :) She never made me feel awkward about being single after she got married, which I enjoyed. Circling crazy ladies on my pages in my ads was always a treat. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will never be the same for me now and I will always be thankful I'm not an English major. Thanks, Allison.

John Gagnon- John was already kind of a Scroll ancient by the time I got to know him in Fall 2004, but that's what was so great about him- I always knew I could turn to him and he would have the answer. Whether coloring in my ads when he should've been reading my page, or singing a song I could harmonize with, John made me laugh my head off when I should've been working. Many a wasted hour was spent on youtube and other various areas of entertainment, and I enjoyed making stuff up with him, like when he'd start talking in his Italian accent and I would answer back. I salute you, John.

Comic Frenzy-- my secret dream

2007-12-08T22:19:00.000-08:00

I just went to a Comic Frenzy show tonight. One of the 7:00 showings -- those of you who are regulars at the shows know what I'm talking about. 7:00 is a smaller crowd, so the group has a harder time getting into the improv comedy games. So I just kinda started getting into it. Like, crazy getting into it -- giving tons of suggestions and laughing really loudly and thinking of things to say in my head (like the name of a children's book being "Why Mommy Cries") if I were on stage.

Then I thought, why couldn't/can't I be on that stage with them? I remembered that one of the guys on the troupe who I know, John, said they were losing a lot of guys next semester.

And it hit me. What if I tried out?

"Ah! You're not funny enough!" said my evil, non-self-esteem angel side.

"Ha! Yes I am!" I told him. (For some reason, my evil angel is a man. :))

So, as of now, I'm going to try out for Comic Frenzy. That is, until I lose my nerve...

Dang it! Brandon entered the blogging world!

2007-12-04T14:30:00.001-08:00

Dear Journal (and everyone else who is reading this blog because Grandpa just told everyone about it)~

Just found out today that Brandon has a blog and has posted about 20 times on it. Oh, and he's commented about the fact that I've had a blog about 20 times longer than he has, and I've posted a grand total of, counting this blog, four times. *Sigh. Yet again does Brandon enter something I started first and completely take it over in a flash of light.

He's got a quote of the day, has categorized his 20 posts, and has added pictures and movies to many of his blogs. I'm lucky if I can get the words out to post, much less categorize and add art to them.

He also has a seemingly endless supply of material to blog about. Sports, politics, news, the Internet and more! It's like a one-stop shopping trip in blogform.

And yet, I will not despair! I will post when I can, add pictures as needed, and secretly try to undermine his blog. Just kidding! (For those of you who don't know, Brandon is almost the sole reader of my blog. Or was, as of Tuesday, December 4th at 3:36 p.m.)

I'm proud that he would go into the blogging world with such an enthusiasm and put both feet in. When he's a world-famous blogger someday, and is getting interviews with Wolf Blitzer and Glenn Beck, I hope he remembers me — and maybe will still give me tips on how to make my blog better.

Taming of the Shrew

2007-11-29T21:31:00.000-08:00

I just finished watching Taming of the Shrew- a marvelous production, if I do say so myself. Although, I must say the message was slightly mixed. I couldn't decide whether it was telling women to be shrewish to get men, so they have to tame you, or to be tame from the beginning, so men will love you. I don't get Shakespeare sometimes...

I'm not going to lie: I was torn on my feelings for Kate in the show. I mean, she was a perfectly awful person who just went around being mean to people and such, but if you think about it, her life couldn't have been a picnic exactly. How did she become a shrew? I hardly think she was born as one. She had to live with a beautiful sister whom her father clearly adored, and who suitors lined up around the block for. I'm sure she got the "lesser sister/daughter" treatment from birth, which might have been why she was so peevish all the time.

When Petruccio started to break her, I started feeling bad for her. Even though she had been a jerk in acts and scenes past, I didn't feel she deserved to be "broken" and was saddened to see it happen. Kate's speech at the end about women's obedience to men was especially unnerving for me, and I'm still trying to figure out why. Maybe it was Petruccio's braggadocio about his wife's obedience that really made me angry-- Kate's wasn't the only one with faults that needed to be made better. No, I'm not a feminist.

Then again, I couldn't help thinking that it was a game for Kate. When she finally decides to start obeying his commands no matter what he says, (because it's either follow them or go back) it seems there is a bit of a twinkle in her eye. I think it finally dawns on her that she is stuck with this man at least for the next little while, although probably the rest of her life, and she better make the best of it. The best way she knows how to do so is to play the game he proposes. I also can't help thinking that the bet at the end between the three men is set up by Kate and Petruccio before they get there. It would make more sense to me and would soothe my feelings that Kate was now just a mindless, obedient slave.

Was Kate's character at the end the kind of woman Shakespeare really wanted? Is she the kind of woman men want?

Relationships between men and women at BYU-I

2007-11-17T15:49:00.001-08:00

I was hanging out with my roommate, Lisa, the other night, and we started talking about guys. However, it was more in depth than your usual conversation that goes something like this: "Like, oh my gosh! I totally like like _(insert name of latest crush here)__."

This time we got to talking about how guys on campus are players, to a certain extent, and how they're encouraged to be that way. This pressure comes from all sorts of places, including bishops and devotional speakers. Also, everyone knows the guy-to-girl ratio at BYU-I is definitely in the guy's favor, and we definitely agreed that the ratio is part of the reason they might seem like players.

We also agreed that those two things are probably part of the reason more guys get married at BYU-I than girls. I know it might seem like a "duh" thing, but we came up with reasons why this happens. Not only are they encouraged to be players, but with the odds the way they are, it's more likely they'll get married because they have more single girls to choose from and match with. It just statistically makes sense.

Then we talked about how most girls on BYU-I campus tend to chase guys — one at a time. She focuses her efforts on one guy to have a crush on and doesn't look up from him during the entire semester. Since the odds are already fighting against her, she handicaps herself even more by only focusing on one guy.

The ironic part of this whole conversation was when we realized that women are usually the ones who can multi-task, and men are usually the ones who have a hard time listening to their wives and watching the game at the same time.

So, women who are single and looking, throw your line in more places! If the odds seem to be working against you, tip them in your favor.

Men, keep on keepin' on. Even though some people might see you as players for asking out a different girl every weekend, it's a good way for you to get to know a lot of people and increase your chances of finding "The One" — wherever she is.

Getting to know me

2007-11-02T15:38:00.001-07:00

Since I've entered the world of blogging, I've decided to give a little introduction to my site for those of you who don't already know me.

I'm a communication major with an emphasis in journalism and on my school's newspaper, which is partly why I decided to start a blog.

My minor is sociology and my sociology classes will probably provide a lot of fodder...I mean, material...for my posts. Right now I'm taking Introduction to Sociology (online), Introduction to Criminal Justice, Drugs and Society, and Ethnic Relations.

I'm from a large family and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which will probably also be a part of my arguments and posts.

Everything else I'm sure you'll figure out as my number of posts grow. Happy reading!