She's Stuck in my Heart Now, Where my Blood Belongs

Well, Marci stole my thunder on this one, but as promised, an ode to my hot little loverhoneypunkinpie:



I've put together a few little examples that, um, exemplify why I'm still stoked on her.

Reason #1: Kristin operates on a higher plane than I do.

When I'm going to park my car, I just look for the nearest spot possible. Not necessarily the nearest one to the door, but the nearest one to where I am when I realize I should be looking for a parking spot. This is the only thing on my mind.

Kristin, on the other hand, has a whole 'nother idea in mind. Not only is she looking for the spot, but she's also looking for shade. She'll go just a few minutes out of her way in order to park in a place that will ensure a cooler vehicle when we finish, exhausted and ornery, and climb into the car. There you go. Another plane. Multiple layers going on in there.

Reason #2: She notices things that I don't, puts them into words, and blows my frickin' mind.

Now we don't watch Saturday Night Live very often. And by very often, I mean we probably never did in the entire time we were dating or married. One night, by some chance, we were watching it. Flipping through the channels, stopped when we saw Christopher Walken (a long held policy of mine) and got stuck there. Now I was mildly entertained, but not really into it. It was enough to stay on the channel, but not enough to say that I was enjoying myself. Couldn't place it, though, you know?

Anyway, Kristin finally grabs the remote, changes the channel, and says, "They can't give up on a joke! Every skit starts out ok and they just keep going and going with it!"

And in those words, she explained to me why I've never enjoyed that show, or really any other sketch comedy show since MTV's The State. This is a life-long source of conundrum summed up in one sentence by the hot girl sitting on the couch with me.

I can only really handle a joke three times, no matter how outlandish it gets. Obviously there are exceptions, but they are few and they are handled by experts (O Brother Where Art Thou comes to mind. I think George Clooney says "Damn, we're in a tight spot" 5 times. This works, though, especially since the fifth comes off-camera, and quiet.

Anyway, mind blown, heart racing with pure love.

Moving on...

Reason #3: Even though she won't lead climb or learn to ride my longboard, Kristin is at least 14 times tougher than I am.

Now I'm not going to trot out the old childbirth thing, 'cause that's been done and done and really, how hard can it be?

Two summers ago I was working in the Great Basin doing plant surveys for the university. I would leave for 8 to 10 days at a time and go out in the desert and kind of count cheatgrass. There was more to it, but not, you know, a lot more. While the job consisted of many hours of very boring work in absurdly hot and buggy conditions, it was also a bit of a vacation. I would work all day, then go home to a bunkhouse or a tent and play video games.

If this doesn't sound like a vacation, then you don't have kids. At the time Ethan was maybe 3 and Joanna was pretty brand new. One day, while Kristin was taking me to campus to drop me off for what another stint, Ethan just explodes. Puke everywhere. All over the car seat, the seat in front of him, the floor, everywhere. Probably 10 seconds before we got to where we needed to go. While I packed my stuff into the Jeep to go to work, she stripped him down and began sopping up the worst of it. While Ethan screamed, "Don't go daddy, don't go," I gave him a kiss on the cheek wherever the puke wasn't and kind of trudged to the Jeep.

Here's the kicker. Kristin stayed. She stayed to nurse a nauseous 3 year old and a brand new, tiny little baby all by herself for more than a week. When I called that evening, worried about my kids and her well-being, everything was fine. Ethan was in the tub, Jo was asleep, and Kristin was calm. Now I'm not saying that there weren't moments when she was ready to break down and cry, and she might have, but between the time when I left and the time that I called, some kind of miracle took place and my family was happy, fed, and clean.

And that's the real thing. I think that Kristin always things she's barely got things together. When I come home from work the kids'll be messy, or the house will be messy, or 2 out of 3 will be crying, and she'll immediately point this out and use it as an example of why she's incompetent. But I know these kids; some of you know these kids. The fact that Ethan isn't tied to a chair and Joanna's mouth isn't duct taped (she puts coins in her mouth, like she's an addict about it. She'll say "Uh-oh" as she inserts the filthy copper pennies into her mouth) with Ginny being the little angel that littlest sisters often are is a pretty amazing feat.

And Kristin is an amazing girl.



Love ya angelbabe.

"I'm pretty sure she's baked at a professional level"

I am going to take this time to speak to you about baked goods.  "Goods" is the perfect word for this, because they really are that.  Good, I mean.  And they're baked.  

So far, so, um, awesome.

I like them, baked goods, I mean.  I'm in Vernal right now, and I'm feeling the absence of a nice, locally owned bakery that will sell objects that are frosted and filled with sugar and make a mess and bring joy to my life.  There is a Wal-mart here, and they make CHOCOLATE OLD FASHIONED DOUGHNUTS.  Which I did not know exist but now that I do I have to always print the word in all-caps.  I don't have a CHOCOLATE OLD FASHIONED DOUGHNUT here or I would take a picture of it.  They are not chocolate frosted, mind you, they are made out of chocolate.

Has anyone else had one?  It's brilliant.  But I dislike Wal-mart and don't really consider them worthy of this conversation.

So we'll talk about Logan bakeries.  My first job in Cache Valley was at Shaffer's Bakery, where I arrived at 3 am, frosted doughnuts, ate some, and delivered them to gas stations and a few other businesses around town.  Since the cops all hung out at Shaffer's and recognized the van, I could drive as fast as I wanted to.  And I did.  And I ate a lot of doughnuts.  

I don't have pictures yet, I'm afraid, but they make the best cake doughnuts I've ever eaten.  My favorites are chocolate frosted cake and cinnamon sugar.  Dang, I want one.

When it comes to flour-concocted delicacies, though, there is one that stands above all of the rest, presiding over the field with a pompous air to its pink-frosted visage.  Old Grist Mill's sugar cookies are the best thing I've ever eaten.  They only make them on Monday and Thursday, but for some reason I constantly mix that up with Tuesday and Saturday.  There is no reasoning to this, but I have gone into the store at the very least 4 times on a tuesday and 3 times on a saturday and asked for sugar cookies, only to be turned down and pitied. 

This is genius.  If they served these cookies every day, I would be there every day until I hated them.  Instead, I'm writing an entire blog post as a love letter to the Old Grist Mill sugar cookie.  

Stupid Vernal.

It's the wiggety wiggety wiggety wiggety whack.

Kristin gave me a few ideas for future blog posts, and I thought I'd do them in the order she requested:

1: Making the transition from full-time student to full-time employee.
2: Schaffers' Doughnuts: how they're better than any other doughnut in existence.
3: Why my wife is so awesome.

I'll do these a day at a time, of course. I'm excited for number two because it will include my buying and then taking pictures of doughnuts. Then eating them. Also, in order to be complete, I will also buy an Old Grist Mill sugar cookie, photograph it, and then devour it. I'm looking forward to number two.

Number three, if done correctly, might lead to a heavy make out session. I'm looking forward to number three.

But today we're going to talk about being a member of the gainfully employed.

Right now I'm working for SWCA. Nobody knows what the acronym stands for. I think it's just the last names of the dudes who started the company. It's an environmental consulting agency. The "environmental" in the title might make you think that we're saving the world. We're not really. In fact, in some ways (not all, mind you) we're kind of participating in its gradual destruction. Me in particular, since I facilitate oil well construction near Vernal. I liken this to a girl who pays for college by stripping. She doesn't plan on doing it for the rest of her life, but it's paying the bills right now, whether she's happy with herself while doing it.

It's better than whore, right?

Anyway, in the company's defense, we are also involved in some really great things, like habitat restoration, and saving cute little animals like burrowing owls and cute little plants like Uinta Basin Hookless Cactus.



Wait, this isn't what my point was. My point is to talk about life as an ex-student. There are definitely benefits and drawbacks. A benefit is that as a student I had an excuse to work part time. The major drawback is that I could never fully relax because something was aaaalllways due. If I were a single guy, I would miss all the pretty girls on campus. I'm not single, though, and therefore I had no idea that there were pretty girls on campus.

It's neat having more money, though as anyone who has begun making substantial amounts of more money can attest, it rarely feels like it. J.K. Rowling would disagree, but I think for a lot of us, that's just how it is. With extra money comes things like extra health insurance premiums, a potential house payment, and sweet new longboards.

Happy birthday to me? We'll see how much it costs to fix the window Ethan busted

These are necessities, unfortunately, that come with affluence.

It's nice having a regular schedule, though, even though my schedule is flexible enough that I regularly abuse it and have to scramble to make up my hours late in the week. When I come home, though, I can be home. I don't have to worry about papers due the next day, and aside from the occasional freelance map I do for extra money, I can pretty much focus on my family when I come home. Or, you know, video games.

So there you go. While I do plan on eventually going back to get a master's degree, I don't plan on doing that terribly soon. Instead, I'll enjoy my 8 hour shift with a half hour lunch and two fifteen minute breaks for a while. I work right downtown and I'm surrounded by four great sandwich places (two of which I say rival any sandwich place in the state) and a mexican grocery store that sells tacos for a buck a piece and the good mexican coke with cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. Things could be much worse.

I'm off to Vernal starting the 20th, so I'll be celebrating my birthday there, that should be a story for the future.

Fake News: A little Bon-Bon to Make up for Previous Diatribe

This is something I dabbled in last winter. I'll post one of these now and then. In case you don't know anything about video games and the industry, I'll never post one without posting something else that same day. This time I added it because my last blog was sooooo long. Go read it anyway, though.

HIDEO KOJIMA SNUBBED AGAIN ON OSCAR NIGHT

Great, another paperweight.


Hideo Kojima fiddled nervously with his bowtie, obviously uncomfortable with his Armani tuxedo, as the Academy Award for Best Director was announced. He clutched the sides of his seat, as if to stand, but fell back quickly as Joel and Ethan Coen's names were announced. With a great sigh, he looked around the tiny bar several blocks away from the Kodak Theater and asked for another bourbon.

Even though he hadn't actually published a game in 2007, Kojima still felt like this might have been this year. "Every year I wait for the academy to recognize the '30+ Hour Interactive Movie' category, because I know I'd be a lock for that one. Still, you never know when they might recognize my skills at directing stiff caricatures of human beings that are an abomination to human life."

Kojima, who originally planned on being a film director but changed his mind when he realized that there just wasn't a market for porn magazine-viewing and stepmom-diddling in Hollywood, has nonetheless held on to the dream of someday caressing the golden man-shape of the Oscar.

He remained optimistic, however, "This year I will be unveiling Metal Gear Solid 4, which as you know, will include several new subplots that I think the academy will like." When asked to elaborate, Kojima was cagey. "Let's just say that in addition to the themes of nuclear proliferation and flaws of democracy found in my previous games, this time you can also count on issues such as teen pregnancy, brutal murder, oil barony, and whatever Michael Clayton was about."

To ensure a nod in for 2008, Kojima is also hard at work on new sequels to Boktai: The Sun is in Your Hands and Policenauts. Gamers were told to expect a treatise on the consequences of global warming and a hard-hitting indictment of brutality inflicted by future space police.

Originally posted on http://phase1phaser.com

Apologies

While I was on my mission, a friend of mine sent me a letter saying that he was going to be just like me. He was going to go on tons and tons of dates. While part of me was pleased that he had such a high opinion of my lady-wooing skills, another, secret part of me felt sick and ashamed at how awful I truly was at dating. Any impression he had of me being some kind of ladies man was only evidence of my ability to create such a ruse and uphold it constantly.

No, I didn't make up dates, I did actually go on them. I often appeared at the movie theater with a very attractive girl at my arm (not, you know, with her arm linked in mine, or holding my hand, but at the polite distance of a girl who is having an ok-but-not-fabulous-time.) I was pretty good at getting first dates. Even second dates. Even third and fourth and fifth dates. What I was not good at was making any kind of progress from date to date. As I've learned more about people, and girls and the women that girls eventually become, I started realizing how awful at it I was.

So, some apologies. I'm going to change names for the sake of the poor girls who I have confused, hurt, or annoyed in my mid-to-late adolescent years. Hopefully Kristin doesn't get jealous to know that I had been infatuated with other girls before I developed the super mega hardcore crush I still have on her now.

Honestly. Sooo hot.

I might as well start with my first date, a girl who, in retrospect, I think probably actually liked me. Unfortunately I had this problem, which will come up again and again, I think, that prevented she and I to actually, you know, become a thing. When I like a girl and it seems to be one-way, I always wonder to myself why she doesn't like me back. "What's wrong with me?" I'd muse, "I'm nice, I'm thoughtful, my mom taught me to always open the door for a girl."

On the other hand, when I am aware that a girl likes me, my first reaction is to think, "Hmmm, what's wrong with this girl? She must have some kind of issues to be slumming it with the kid with the funky breastbone, glasses, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle books?"

See the problem? As soon as a girl exhibited, you know, an honest and straight-forward sign that she was in like with me, I shut right off. I gave her space and pursued another girl on my list.

Tangent: there was always a list. Imagine a pyramid. At the top was the girl of the day or week or month. She got the full treatment: I made sure to see her and say hi and talk with her every day, I had an idea for a date within the next two weeks and hopefully had already asked her, and I thought about her roughly all of the time. Below her there were two or three girls who were getting a milder, but still a bit aggressive, amount of attention from me. On down the line were girls who were, for one reason or another, good for a date every now and then, and a good talk, but weren't top-tier material. I would have made a terrible polygamist.

Tangent over. So first date(s) girl, I apologize. I apologize because I didn't see that you liked me, or when I could see that you liked me, I didn't do anything because I didn't think I was worth a pretty, fun girl liking me. I hope you didn't lose sleep over it. I am stupid.

From here, these will jump around based on what comes to mind. Not chronological order. First kiss girl: sorry I pursued you when you probably just wanted to be friends because it turns out you were not into dudes.

Girl who I totally hit it off with when she moved to our school from FRANCE: sorry I smothered you. Sorry I called you so often and insisted on walking with you out of seminary and acted like a weirdo and then took you to a concert where everyone was smoking pot and you got sick. I'm glad we were able to at least be civil with one another before we graduated.

Girl who opened up to me about all sorts of things and we had this great talk until, like, 3 am: sorry I smothered you and got mad when you were talking to your other guy friends at the fireworks and thinking that I should have any right to do that when all we'd done is had a great talk. We could have been friends but instead I was totally all up in your business and pouty.

That girl: Um, sorry. I don't think I ever told you that I really liked you. I mean, I took you on lots of dates, and taught you how to snowboard (at least, get started with that) and got you nice things on your birthday, but a lot of guys did that for you. Here's what would have been better: I laid it on the line and you said you liked that other guy more but could we be friends? And I would say, sure we can be friends and then we wouldn't really be. That would have been better, huh? Rather than me being happy some days and sullen the next and you never knowing why because aren't we just really good friends? Why is he so mad that I mentioned that I'm taking some other guy to a concert that he totally just railed on about how stupid the band is and how lame it is I'm going?

Ugh. Thanks for being so nice at the high school reunion, like I was a positive thing in your life.

Wow, this is already getting too long and I feel like I'm just getting warmed up. Next time we'll continue. It will be cathartic to me and probably uncomfortable for you. How fun is that??!?!

Explanation

A story:

Also a good introduction to my blog and a telling story about who I was as a child, and for the most part still am. Very revealing. Very bloggy.

Ok, no more sentence fragments. At least, not conscious ones (I can't stop!)

Our first computer was a Commodore 64. It had a program called Print Shop with some basic, very pixellated clip art. The clip art was organized into categories. Those that didn't fit into a category was called, simply, "Misc."

At some point there was a show and tell at my elementary school. Everyone was told to bring a collection and each collection would be displayed on our desks. In what should be a surprise to no one who knows me, I had no idea and showed up oblivious. When I realized that I was the only student without a collection, I pulled everything from my desk, random toys, Los Angeles Raiders pencils, drawings I'd done, maybe a winter glove, and piled it on top. I wrote "Misc." on a piece of paper and taped it to the front of the desk.

My teacher (I think this was 3rd grade, so it could have been one of many, as my real teacher was fighting cancer and I went through a variety of substitutes that year) told me to put it all away and I visited fellow students' collections, wishing, as I watched them pass by the blank wood of my own spot, that I'd brought all my Ninja Turtles stuff.

This blog, then, will be that desk full of Misc. It will have no main theme. Sometimes it will be about me, sometimes it will be an idea I had, sometimes it will be fake news about something esoteric that only I and a handful of other people would know anything about. I might republish things I've posted elsewhere.

If someone reads it besides my wife, I will be happily surprised (if she even reads it, that is.)